I don’t get to see my two nephews in Alberta nearly enough. Having family live far away is difficult at times, especially when you have to watch your precious nephews grow up without being able to see them whenever you want to.
Or I talk to them on the phone and I miss them even more…
Yesterday our phone conversation went a little something like this:
‘Auntie Angie, when are you coming to visit us?’
‘Saturday. Only 2 more sleeps!’
‘Are you going to give me lots of hugs and kisses?’
‘I sure am! and tickles too…’
(giggles)
‘Are you bringing any treats, Auntie Angie?’ (devious giggles)
‘You’ll have to see on Saturday…’
‘Bye.’
[The quick and unexpected departures on the phone are always funny.]
One year, I made the mistake of giving my oldest nephew clothing for Christmas. I was not a cool Aunt at all, and to make up for it, I made copious amounts of Glo Bars during my stay.
For this trip, I decided to bring my nephews Glo Bars (which they go nuts over) and cookies. I shall reclaim my cool Aunt status and not let them down.
Uncle Eric will be cool by association.
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Auntie Angie’s Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
Soft and moist, with lots of peanut butter flavour. Dip these cookies in almond milk for a delicious treat that is not too sweet. I used protein packed and nutritious whole grain spelt flour here, but you can also use all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour too.
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups spelt flour (or all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup peanut butter (see note)
- 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup almond milk
- Turbinado & kosher salt, for sprinkling on cookie before baking
Directions: Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a non-stick mat. In a medium mixing bowl mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. in a large bowl combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, optional oil (see note below), and vanilla. Stir until combined. Pour the flour mixture over the peanut butter mixture and mix. Place the batter into the fridge for 30 minutes to set or simply wet your fingers and shape into balls. Wet a fork and press down onto the cookie crosswise. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and kosher salt. Bake for 11 minutes at 350F and let cool for 5 minutes.
Note: The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil, however I omitted this due to the fact that my peanut butter was very oily and slick (the result of a brand new jar!). If your peanut butter is a bit on the dry side, you might want to add 3-4 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil into the mix to ensure that your cookies don’t come out too dry.
Yields 26 cookies.
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Gather the wet ingredients: PB, maple syrup, and vanilla.
Note: there should also be 1/4 cup of almond milk mixed in with the wet. This was something I added in later, but I would mix it in with the above ingredients if I made them again.
Mix.
Gather dry ingredients: Spelt flour, baking soda, salt.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and then add into the wet and stir with a big spoon. The batter will be very thick and sticky.
Now, you can either refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes or if you are impatient (ME) and fighting daylight for photography (ME), you can simply wet your fingers and shape the balls that way. If the dough sticks to your hands make sure to keep wetting them.
Same goes for the fork. Keep it wet and you will be fine.
Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and kosher salt and bake for 11 minutes at 350F. I baked 12 cookies at a time. This recipe makes about 26 cookies.
Cool for 5 minutes.
Easy as that!
Mmmmm.
If you are a crunchy peanut butter cookie fan, this probably isn’t your recipe because these cookies are quite soft. Any ideas on how to get them really firm and crunchy (aside from cooking them longer)?
All wrapped up and put in my suitcase for my nephews. :)
4am wake-up call tomorrow…Better get to sleep!
I love pb cookies! I wonder if mixing chopped peanuts into the batter would up the crunch factor… either way, I’m sure they’re delicious just as they are. Have a lovely time with your fam (and please don’t bring any Alberta weather back with you!! ;)
Cute! Living away from family is not easy. I know this too much, as my family lives all in Brazil and I only get to see them once a year… not easy.
Love the cookies, look so good, I might try them as my son loves pb too!
Ana
I have made this recipe from 101 cookbooks and I have only ever had great results. Your look gorgeous! Any chance you are going to be in Calgary? I would LOVE to take you out for a coffee if you are. Calgary has an unbelievable third wave coffee scene. Since I know this is a current love of yours, I can recommend tons of places (in Edmonton too, if that’s where you happen to be) that you might love to eat/drink/be merry. Either way, safe travels and have a great time!
What are your favorite cookies to make ahead of time and freeze? I have in-laws coming for Christmas, all of whom eat very differently than we do. I work full time and have 2 kids, but I want to make several different kinds of health(ier) holiday cookies. Thinking I can tackle it by doing a recipe at a time….ahead of time. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
My wedded bliss soft ginger cookies :) yum!
have fun with the kids
Aww :( I know exactly how you feel. My niece and nephew live back in Australia and I miss them so much. I hope you’re enjoying your time with your nephews!
I love this recipe by 101 Cookbooks. My husband’s diet calls for no sugar and refined flours so this recipe is perfect. It’s our (almost) daily tea time treat until we run out and need to bake another batch. I live away from my nephew as well as my sister lives in Seattle and I can’t wait until he is old enough so I can start baking and feeding him. Right now he is just 7 months so can’t indulge him in too many solids yet.
Perfect! I’ve been looking for a yummy vegan peanut butter cookie recipe! And since my brothers don’t have my same eating habits I’ve made them non-veg pb cookies before and what makes them crunchy is FAT. ahaha. They have vegetable shortening, butter, and peanut butter. The shortening makes them crispy, the butter spreads them out and gives them a chewy center, while the peanut butter….probably does a little bit of both :) When the dough is greasy and leaves you hands shiny, that’s when you know you’ve got enough fat. Also, I don’t know if you did this already, but rolling the cookies in sugar before putting them in oven gives them a nice, crispy outside. One last thing to check is your baking soda to salt ratios/how much of it you’re using, but I doubt that has much to do with it. I hope you find this supa long post useful! :D
You have no idea how badly I needed this recipe today. I almost searched your blog just to find one like this.
Hi Angie.
I’ve just started following your blog, and I am enthralled. Reading through your road to health series has made me examine my own habits and let go of some negative patterns. Thanks for sharing your journey.
As for the cookies, I made these last night. I used in chickpea flour and added some dark chocolate chunks. The dough tasted a bit “beany” and I was worried that it was going to be a failed attempt, but the finished product has been consumed without complaint. My boyfriend and his family are gluten intolerant, so I’m learning to adapt recipes. He is also a typical guy who hates veggies, beans, fruit… bring on the meat and potatoes. I’m becoming very sneaky at hiding healthful ingredients in yummy food. Your cookies (bean flour and all, shh!) passed the test.
Emily.
Thanks Emily!
I have never had success with chickpea flour myself. Maybe try using Bob’s red mill all purpose GF flour? Ive heard great things!
oooh! I love using spelt flour. These look so great! I love the cross hatch marks on pb cookies!
Your nephews go ‘nuts’ for Glo bars. I love it! I think you should have a testimonial from them on your bakery site. The PB cookies look great, how excited am I for the holiday cookie season!?!
YUMMMY!!! I linked to you on my new blog today :) I’m not vegan but I’ve made quite a few of your recipes, they are always great!
Oh awesome, pb cookies are my absolute favourite but I haven’t tried a vegan recipe for them yet!
I have two questions, by the way, I know this isn’t really the place for them, but just in case you were thinking of doing another FAQ soonish?
So:
1. Spelt flour – what are the benefits? I bought some the other week when I saw it in the store, cause I know you use it quite a lot, but I’m really interested in know why you’re a fan =]
and:
2. I don’t suppose you’d think about doing another set of ‘day by day’ food blogging/exercise posts in the future? I know you did that a little in the past, but I’m trying to find my own balance between food and exercise, and I’d love to know what/how much you eat relative to the activity you do in a day. Any chance of it?
Spelt flour is very high in protein and digests very easy :)
Your recipe reminded me of my childhood cookie dunking days. Like wei-wei I love softer cookies too although my son now preferred them harder. I’ll follow your recipe for myself and see if wei-wei trick will work to make them harder. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Angela!!! :)
As soon as I saw this recipe I knew I had to make it. Yummm!!! The only change I made was using 1 cup spelt and 1 cup whole wheat flour. The end result was awesome, they came out perfectly shaped and not too crumbly. Great flavour, although I do wish the maple syrup was more pronouced. I think I will use agave nectar syrup next time, so not to waste my precious maple syrup. :)
Thanks again, Angela. You and your recipes continue to amaze me. I have been following your blog since it’s inception and I can’t believe how far you’ve come culinarily (is that a word?). :)
Forget being a kid-favorite, these would easily win over all ages! The maple syrup is an interesting touch – wondering if there’s an ingredient that could be used as a substitute? Thanks, Angela!
Forget being a kid-favorite, these would easily win over all ages! The maple syrup is an interesting touch – wondering if there’s an ingredient that could be used as a substitute? Thanks, Angela!
I made these tonight with the addition of 1/4 cup chocolate chips. :) Got 30 out of ’em! (only 62kcal/each according to online calculators). Just to help others, I found that 9 minutes was enough or they started to burn; but that could be because I preheated for quite a while. I also found it fun to keep some as raw cookie dough balls and eat ’em that way. Thanks for the recipe.
These are amazing!!! I substituted home ground almond flour and they turned out great:) even a hit with my bf’s friends that came over to watch football!
I love this recipe. They are my official tea cookie….I have my tea and a cookie after dinner. Thank you!
Hello Angela! These cookies look amazing like the rest of your recipes, but I’m having trouble looking for two ingredients. I have been told I can substitute whole wheat pastry flour for half white flour+half whole wheat? I haven’t seen spelt here neither :( and pure maple syrup here is rare and ultra expensive :( How much sucanat should I add to substitute?
Hi Diego, I’m sorry you are having trouble! I haven’t tried the recipe any other way, so I’m not sure. Generally you can swap liquid sweeteners for other liquid sweeteners (such as sub maple syrup for agave), but swapping a dry sweetener for a wet can have undesirable (or I should say, unpredictable) results. Let me know how it goes & good luck!
Just made these and they are DELICIOUS!
I used 1/4 cup coconut flour combined with 1 3/4 cups of all purpose gluten free flour and it worked well! They baked to be quite hard as well so I am assuming that was the coconut flour?… Whatever it was they are amazing!
Thank you for the recipe – I can’t wait to try more of your creations :)
I made these Sunday night shortly after I whirred up some homemade peanut butter. It was my first ever clean/vegan recipe. I’m hooked. I made a half batch. Took most of them to work. They were a hit (except for one person). My boyfriend who is picky loved them. Now, I’m out, so I need to make more.
This recipe was awesome! I love that it uses all ingredients I had on hand. I used this recipe to make mini Oreo burgers. Not so nutritious, but oh-so delicious!
I made these for my brother and he loved them!!! He asks me at least once a week to make them :D
Is it possible to substitue the pure maple syrup for agave nectar?
when do we add almond milk Angela? Love your recipes.
Best. Peanut butter. Cookies. Ever. I added dark chocolate chips, they’re dreamy delicious. I’m so thankful for your blog!
This sounds easy and delicious, my kind of baking!
Can I replace Peanut butter with Raw Almond Butter?
Thanks
Cecilia
Can I use chunky peanut butter?
Thank you of the recipe. It was good, but very very dry. I even added the oil in addition to the oily natural put butter, it still came out crumbly and dry. The flavor is not too sweet, which is good if you don’t like sweet things. I have a sweet tooth, so next time i make these I will add stevia or maple syrup to the batch. These are very hearty and heathy, and fill you up quite fast. I appreciate that, even in a “junk food”!!
Gloria
Love this recipe! Was just wondering if the dough freezes well, and if it does, how long it will keep for? I have a lot of almond milk I’m trying to use up at the moment, haha
I made these using straight up pb (that had no additives) and followed the recipe to a T. I was gravely disappointed because the dough was waaaayy too crumbly and I ended up having to add sooo much olive oil to the dough to make it stick. After adding a ton of oil, I tried pressing them with a fork and they STILL didn’t stay together! I don’t know what I did wrong! :( I fixed them by carefully shaping them and adding jelly to the center, but it was so not worth buying that expensive pb for these cookies! The person I made these for loved the end result, but I will not be making these again! :(
Oh yeah! And I also used a bunch of maple syrup! Never again!
Gotta try these this weekend!
Well I tried this recipe yesterday and it’s the first time I’ve ever had to throw my baking in the bin. Nobody would eat them! The only thing I did I differently was use normal whole milk instead of almond milk. Sorry!
Hey Fiona, So sorry to hear this! I wonder if the the whole milk threw them off somehow?
These were terrible. Followed the recipe perfectly. The dough seemed very dry. The cookies came out very dry and bland. Terrible. Not sure how you could improve this recipe. More oil?
Made these tonight. They were so good! I replaced the maple syrup with regular white sugar and increased the milk. The best pb cookie I have ever had. I am not even vegan but I just don’t care for traditional crispy crunchy peanut butter cookies so I made these. Really glad I did. My 2, 5 and 1 year old all approve. I even put a dollop of strawberry jelly in the middle of a few. That was also good.
These baked up quite nicely. The flavour of the spelt flour took over from the peanut butter though for me, so next time I’d change the ratio to have more peanut butter.