Why do peanut butter cookies have fork hash-marks?

Factual Questions
1

We are having a debate in another web forum about why peanut butter cookies, both homemade and bought in stores, all seem to have the universal fork hash marks on them.

Rather than tell you the ideas we’ve come up with, I wanted to see if anyone here knew for sure, or had any other different ideas.

2

Previously discussed: Peanut Butter Cookies

I am glad they do it, so I can easily identify them at the coffee shop. If I were to make some, I’d feel remiss if I left the hash marks off.

3

Well, homemade peanut butter cookies have fork marks because you make them by putting a lump of dough on the cookie tray, and then flattening it with a fork. However peanut butter cookie dough, being relatively more firm, will not flatten enough on its own. You have do it with the fork because you want a flatter cookie so it will cook more evenly – else the inside will be not cooked enough, and the outside will be burnt.

You don’t have to use a fork, you could use anything, really. I have one recipe for peanut butter cookies that you flatten with a spoon, which makes a dent rather than a criss-cross, and then you fill the dent with chocolate fudge. If you want flat cookies, you can flatten them with the bottom of a drinking glass (good for making sandwich cookies with a peanut butter filling).

I would guess that most store-bought peanut butter cookies have this hatch mark because that’s the way people think peanut butter cookies ought to look.

Some sugar cookies are fork-flattened as well, but now that you mention this, I feel like I see this less and less, especially in the store-bought variety.

4

I’ve always been tempted to make chocolate chip cookies with the fork marks on them, to try to confuse people. we have a potluck next week and I was thinking of this…

I think it would be hard to pull off, because cc cookies don’t held their form as well as pb ones seem to.

5

Why not really confuse them and put hash marks on deviled eggs?

–CH

6

I use a Hershey’s kiss to flatten my p.b. cookies, and I leave the kiss there. Yummy.

Man, I wish my oven wasn’t broken…