Ah, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I prefer them more in my adult life than I ever did as a kid. I have distinct memories of peanut butter in jelly sandwiches in a brown paper bags for lunch. Then, when lunch came, I usually wouldn’t eat, because by that time, the jelly had seeped through the soft white bread. As a child, I found this unacceptable, assuming something was wrong with it. I was an awful child, is what I’m saying.
But every now and again, since becoming an adult, I will need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If I can’t think of anything to eat, and I’m not craving anything (a real rarity), I’ll just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and everything is right with the world again.
Some might argue that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is more American than apple pie. (And they would basically be right, since apple pie has been around since at least the 1300’s, and probably originated in England.) Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a truly American, born and bred.
The peanut butter and jelly sandwich came about with the proliferation of its three ingredients, at approximately the same time: peanut butter, jelly, and sliced bread.
Let’s begin with peanut butter. Peanut butter was developed in the late 1800’s as a health food, by John Harvey Kellogg, a name you might recognize from your breakfast cereals as a kid. Kellogg ran the Western Heath Reform Institute, a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, which was more a health spa for the middle and upper classes, rather than a hospital. Kellogg began using a peanut paste in the sanitarium as a way of administering vitamins for patients who had trouble chewing or swallowing. Before Kellogg, it was Dr. Ambrose Straub who patented the first peanut butter making machine. Kellogg, however, patented the first process to produce peanut butter. At this time, the peanut paste that Kellogg was feeding his patients was unlike the butter as we know it today. It would be years before peanut butter was available to the masses, as it did not transport well, and was generally only considered a health food for the rich.
By 1901, the very first peanut butter and jelly sandwich recipe was printed in The Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science & Domestic Economics, by Julia Davis Chandler. Chandler suggested that her readers serve the bread, crab apple jelly, and peanut paste bite, to guests at parties, or high tea. Though Chandler combined peanut butter with jelly, at the time, peanut butter was most often served with savory accompaniments, such as watercress, at upscale restaurants or tea rooms.
As for jelly, it has been around, in some form, for more than a thousand years. The first known recipe for a jam dates back to the 4th or 5th century in one of the earliest known cookbooks in existence, De re coquinaria (called the Art of Cooking in English), otherwise known as Apicius (after its presumptive author). However, until pasteurization, jelly would have been made in smaller batches, for the home. It was Nicholas Appert, a Frenchman, who answered Napoleon Bonaparte’s offer of a reward for anyone who could find a way to preserve foods in large quantities for soldiers in 1785. Appert discovered that, by boiling the fruit at high temperatures, and storing them in jars that had been tightly sealed, food would remain safe to eat for long periods of time. Since that time, home cooks would use this method to make jams and jellies as a way of preserving seasonal fruit for the winter. In 1918, however, the brand Welch’s, which was, at the time, exclusively making grape juice, invented “Grapelade,” a food similar to marmalade, but using grapes. The initial stock was bought by the U.S. Army for troop rations during World War I. After the War, the troops brought home their love of grapelade, and in 1923, Welch’s created their Concord grape jelly, the cornerstone of the original PB&J.
The third and final component of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the bread. Of course, bread has been around for thousands of years. But, like jam, making bread was something that was often done in the home, and required time. In the late 1920’s, Otto Frederick Rodhwedder of Iowa invented a bread slicing machine, which revolutionized the way people ate bread. With the arrival of sliced bread, people were eating more bread than ever before. And the timing of the invention, just a few years after Welch’s released their grape jelly, meant that people were using more jams to go along with their bread. By this time, too, peanut butter was no longer considered only a food for the rich. The price point had dropped, allowing all classes to enjoy it. By the time the Great Depression hit in 1929, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had become an easy, fairly nutritious, and cost-effective meal that was easy for children and adults alike to assemble and carry with them. By the time WWII began, peanut butter and jelly sandwich ingredients were included in the soldiers rations, which cemented their status as a icon in American history.
For today’s recipe, I thought, why not take the beloved sandwich, and dessert-ize it by turning into a beloved sandwich cookie. I give you: Peanut Butter and Jelly Linzer Cookies.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Linzer Cookies
Makes about 15 sandwich cookies. Adapted from this recipe from Southern Living.
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup grape jelly
powdered sugar, optional
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter, both sugars, and the peanut butter until well combined. Add in the egg and vanilla and beat in until just combined. Add in the flour and salt, all at once, and beat in until just combined with no white streaks remaining.
Dump out the dough onto a well-floured surface, gathering up any loose pieces that fall away, and form into a disk. Separate the disk into two equal pieces.
Working with one half of the dough, roll out to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out 15 (or as many as you can fit) 2 3/4 to 3-inch circles with a cookie or biscuit cutter. Place the cut outs onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet, about 1 centimeter apart.
Bake for about 9-10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for five minutes, and then remove to a cooling rack.
Repeat the above process with the second half of the dough, this time cutting out a smaller hole in the center of the circle cutouts. Place the cutouts on the second lined cookie sheet and bake for 9-10 minutes.
When the cookies have completely cooled, put a one teaspoon dollop of grape jelly in the center of each of the whole cookies. For the cookies with the center cutout, sprinkle with powdered sugar (optional), and sandwich with the cookies topped with grape jelly.
*Cookies can be served immediately, but I think they actually get better after a day in an airtight container.
These cookies are quite delicious, almost impossible to stop eating (especially if served with milk!), and really do taste like a PB&J. Bonus: They look like they have little jewels in the middle! Happy National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day! P.S. If you’re craving more peanut butter history, you can check out my previous post here.