Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

I decided to make some peanut butter cookies with my vegan chocolate chip cookies. Why? Because the recipe was so simple! All I was missing was maple syrup (we don't do pancakes or waffles in our house). Since I had to go out and get vegan chocolate chips (not that great by the way) I figured pick this up and it would be cheaper than buying a batch of peanut butter cookies. 

Ingredients, so simple! Sugar I added to top the cookies.

Wet and Dry

As stated earlier, I do not like to use the mixer if I can help it. But mixing straight peanut butter is exercise!

Done after a short 10 minutes in the oven! I added chocolate chips as well. And I sprinkled sugar and cinnomon on top (that's what's melted on the foil)

These cookies got a "meh" from the crowd. Straight from the oven, they're delicious. But after sitting around for a bit, they get a bit chalky. I might try a second batch with some soy milk like the chocloate chips cookies? 

Recipe from 101cookbooks.com

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 cup organic, chunky natural peanut butter
1 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Place racks in the top third.

In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. in a separate larger bowl combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla. Stir until combined. Pour the flour mixture over the peanut butter mixture and stir until barely combined - still a bit dusty looking. Let sit for five minutes, give one more quick stir, just a stroke or two. Now drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Press down on each one gently with the back of a fork. It's a loose batter, so if you're set on doing criss-crosses, go ahead and chill the batter for an hour or so before this step. Bake for 10, maybe 11 minutes - but don't over bake or they will be dry. Let cool five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

Make 2 - 3 dozen cookies. 

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have vegan friends. Yes, it's true. With all the meat and cheese and eggs I eat on a daily basis, it is hard to understand this lifestyle. But I love my friends and enjoy their company and when they come to my house, I like to have a treat for them as well. 

I decided to try to make some cookies for our most recent get together. After searching pinterst and punchfork, I found a great recipe on theppk.com. Why was it so great? No funky ingredients. Well, there was tapioca flour but after reading all the comments (like a good engineer), I discovered that corn starch was an excellent substitute for tapioca flour. Win! 

All the ingredients, note, I used evoo for oo. 

Mix of all the wet ingredients. Does your mix look different? Probably because I forgot to add the milk till the end! 

The completed dough before adding the chocolate chips

Done! They look just like "normal" cookies

They were really soft when they first came out of the oven. But after cooling, they were delicious! Why so few cookies? I only made a quarter of the recipe and fridged the rest! 

Yum! What's that you see? Peanut butter cookies? Yup, coming up in tomorrow's post! 

Chocolate Chip Cookies From ThePPK.com

Makes two dozen two inch cookies or about 16 three inch cookies

1/2 brown sugar
1/4 white sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1 tablespoon tapioca flour
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease two large light metal baking sheets.

Mix together sugars, oil, milk and tapioca flour in a mixing bowl. Use a strong fork and mix really well, for about 2 minutes, until it resembles smooth caramel. There is a chemical reaction when sugar and oil collide, so it’s important that you don’t get lazy about that step. Mix in the vanilla.

Add 1 cup of the flour, the baking soda and salt. Mix until well incorporated. Mix in the rest of the flour. Fold in the chocolate chips. The dough will be a little stuff so use your hands to really work them in.

For 3 inch cookies, roll the dough into about ping pong ball size balls. Flatten them out in your hands to about 2 1/2 inches. They will spread just a bit. Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes – no more than 9 – until they are just a little browned around the edges. I usually get 16 out of these so I do two rounds of eight cookies. Let cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

For 2 dozen two inch cookies roll dough into walnut sized balls and flatten to about 1 1/2 inches and bake for only six minutes.