Peanut Butter Cookies and Variations

For variations, see below

Ingredients

• 220g peanut butter (1C)
• 100g brown sugar (1/2C)
• 100g white sugar (1/2C)
• 1 egg
• 4g baking soda (scant 1tsp)
• dash vanilla (~10-15g)
• maybe a bit of cinnamon 
• dark / bittersweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Weigh out all the ingredients besides chocolate into the same medium sized bowl
2. Mix with a spoon fairly well
3. Place onto cookie sheets, pat down a bit
4. Add chocolate chips to the top of each cookie if desired
5. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes until set
6. Place on a cooling rack for a few min to cool enough so they don't fall apart
7. Enjoy with some milk (or better yet, half and half)  

NOTE:  Betsy says that I need to point out that everyone will think I am crazy for mentioning the idea of half and half instead of milk.  Some points to consider:

• Half and half has more healthy saturated fats and WAY less sugar than milk
• More fat = more fat soluble vitamins that most of us are deficient in

Why that fat is healthy

You are eating the cream with a cookie full of sugar -- so having a higher ratio of fat is really good for you (and especially kids)...  

It slows down that blood sugar spike from the cookie and thus reduces the amount of insulin that the pancreas needs to kick out. 

Every time we get a 'sugar high', our bodies kicks out insulin to protect us. The insulin helps us quickly convert that extra sugar into stored fat.

This process changes the hormones in our bodies to store more fat in the future.  Mostly by desensitizing our bodies to insulin, which leads to diabetes, which leads to inflammation of the arteries and thus is the root cause of a lot (if not most) of heart disease and stroke.

So really -- eat up that fat when you have a high carb snack or meal.   

Why Use A Scale

Sometimes using a scale for baking is important because the volume of a given weight of flour or another ingredient varies based on many factors.

However, the most important reason to cook or bake by weight is TIME.  Your time.

It is SO much easier to cook if you have a good scale and get used to it. Think about it: you just scoop in peanut butter until it is the right weight, then pour in sugar, etc.

No extra measuring cups to scrape or clean after! 

Here are some recommendations for kitchen scales.

Variations

Cashew Butter

If you wanted to avoid peanuts, try substituting cashew butter instead... BUT the trick is that you need to cut out the white sugar.  (i.e. use half the sugar)

Why?  

Sugar acts like a liquid in a cookie recipe. Cashew butter has a different profile than peanut and with the full amount of sugar, the cookies will be super thin and not very good.  

With half the sugar, it will not be super sweet.  You could sprinkle sugar on top of the cookie before baking or add a few extra chocolate chips if desired. 

I would also recommend reducing the baking soda a bit:

• 220g cashew butter (1C)
• 100g brown sugar (1/2C)
• 1 egg
• 3g baking soda (1/2 tsp)
• dash vanilla (~10-15g)
• maybe a bit of cinnamon
• dark / bittersweet chocolate chips

Chocolate Peanut Butter

Come on, right?

Make the basic peanut butter recipe and add 30g of dutch processed cocoa powder (~2 heaping Tablespoons).  

These are a little drier, you could reduce the peanut butter by 20g and only use 200g if you prefer. 

Chocolate with flour

OK -- this really is the best cookie -- it isn't GF anymore, but the flour lets us add butter and... yeah... butter is SUCH a good idea for cookies... these are less 'rustic' and more cookie-like.  

Make the same basic recipe, but add:

• 100g of AP flour
• 75g melted butter (or maybe 100)
• 60g of chocolate powder 
• Top with sugar to compensate for the extra bitter in the chocolate

(more chocolate than the other chocolate recipe calls for)

Don't overcook. They will be very delicate, allow to cool on the pan a bit and then transfer to a wire sheet to cool almost fully before eating -- a glass of whole milk is a great idea.