Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

New picture--hurray!

These cookies are very good. But that is only the first of their virtues.

They are also terribly easy to make. The ingredient list is 5 long, which made these the ideal cookie for my my daughter, Elizabeth (age 6), to make by herself.

They are gluten free.

But do you know what I like the most about them: they're kind of like peanut butter balls all grown up. Warm, crispy. I can totally pass on the peanut butter balls because they're kid-like to me, but these, they have just that extra bit of sophistication that calls to me (what do you mean, you don't think it's the sophistication calling to me; what do you mean you think it's the granules of sugar popping so nicely between my teeth. Truly, I'm insulted; I don't even know if we can be friends anymore.) Especially when I remind myself how, um, healthy they are (see, ha). Okay, fine, they're not exactly health food; they have a LOT of sugar, but they also contain no fat outside of the peanut butter and all the protein that peanut butter provides. Because of this, I consider these an ideal dessert to feed to hungry kids before bed. No, it's not breakfast food, but it's not as bad as a regular chocolate chip cookie (may it be forever blessed) either.

Unfortunately for me, I can't take credit for these. I found them on Loves Veggies and Yoga. (She has much prettier pictures too. I'll work on that; these were taken in bad light.) And they needed no improvement or alteration. Well, except for one little one, which you might be able to guess if you know me or any living members of my family. And so, a handful of chocolate chips later we were good to go.

And just for kicks, here's the old picture:


Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
taken from loves yoga and veggies
Makes 12 big; 18 small
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Cost: $1.40
(peanut butter: .90, sugars: .20, egg: .10, chocolate chips: .20)

Note: You can make these chocolate peanut butter cookies by adding 1/2 C cocoa to the mix. This is good, but I like them best just as peanut butter cookies.

1 C peanut butter
3/4 C white sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 C chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together except chocolate chips. Add chocolate chips. Roll into balls (12 large or 18 small).  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. They will be just barely barely golden at the edges. I recommend you take them out at 10 minutes (11 if they're large) whether you see gold or not, because these can burn fairly easily. They won't even look burned, but when you taste them, they will taste burned. I expect that the PB burns more easily without the flour to temper it a bit. Please, be warned and watch the clock, not the cookies (not usually a rule to live by, but trust me).

When you take them out they'll be kind of thick. You can mash them with a spatula if you like which causes the edges to crack a la snickerdoodle and is lovely, or you can leave them as thick delicious mushroom cap cookies. If you make them smaller, they come out flatter. Lovesveggiesandyoga's are flat and really delicious looking. And ours were much flatter when we made them smaller.

PRINTABLE RECIPE