This peanut butter cookies recipe was made especially for cookie painting. Children can paint this dense dough before the cookies are baked and leaves a smooth surface if you choose to paint your cookies after baking. 
Ingredients:3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup shortening 1 cup peanut butter 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup granulated sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 1. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. 2. Cream the shortening, peanut butter, and sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat after the addition of each egg. Continue beating until light and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients and beat them in. The dough should be a soft clay-like consistency. 
3. Form the cookies. You can either roll the dough to 1/4-inch thickness and cut shapes with cookie cutters or you can roll the dough into round and long shapes and form characters, animals, flowers or other shapes. Kids love to use colorful sprinkles and chocolate chips to decorate cookies. You can use this peanut butter cookies recipe to paint cookies with edible paint designed for unbaked or baked cookies. 4. Bake cookies on non-greased sheets. Place cookies of similar sizes and thicknesses on the same sheet so that the cookies on each sheet will bake uniformly. Bake them for ten minutes or until done. Move them to wire racks to cool. 
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