Sorry it has been a while since my last post. Working in an internship has unfortunately not been the best for my wallet, making it hard to buy baking ingredients :) However, while going through one of my recipe collections last night, I found a cookie recipe that called for minimal ingredients and featured my very favorite food, PEANUT BUTTER! It couldn't have been more perfect and gave me the opportunity to get back into my favorite place, the kitchen. While searching for my ingredients, I realized that I was still going to have to do some major ingredient swapping, but this gave me the opportunity to make this particular recipe my own and also made it a challenge, which I love.
The original cookies call for 1 cup of almond butter, which for those of you who have never heard of this ingredient, is just like peanut butter, but a bit more healthy with less sugar than everyday creamy peanut butter. I however, did not have almond butter in the pantry, so I used reduced sugar creamy peanut butter instead, heating it into the microwave for one minute to soften. I did find some sesame covered almonds, which I chopped up and mixed into the softened peanut butter, in order to get some of that almond flavor, not to mention add a nice crunch to the cookies.
Next, the original recipe called for 1 cup of sucanat. This is a sugar cane natural, and looks much like dark brown sugar because of the presence of molasses. Unfortunately I did not have this ingredient either, so instead of sucanat, I improvised and used about a cup of real Maple syrup, followed by the incorporation of 1 large egg, 1 tbsp of baking soda, and half a bag of Hershey chocolate chips. After mixing these ingredients together, the batter looked a little runny still, so I decided to mix in about a cup of quick cooking oats. This was just what the batter needed, but if you are not a fan of oats, than I would suggest trying about a cup or so of flour.
Finally, it was time to get the cookies in the oven to bake. The first batch I put in, I used a tablespoon to measure out a ball of batter and then flattened it out on the cookie sheet, baking at 430 degrees F for 10 minutes. These came out cooked perfectly, but for the next batch, I left the cookies in balls, and again cooked them for 10 minutes. These also came out wonderful, making this recipe wonderful for people who like their cookies flat or more round!
I would be interested in trying the original recipe when I get the chance to purchase more baking ingredients, but I am pretty satisfied with how my improvised recipe turned out, and better yet, my boyfriend, who doesn't even like nuts or oatmeal in cookies, seemed to like these cookies pretty well. Of course he tried to pretend that he didn't like them once he found out what was actually in them, but I saw him munching away when I wasn't looking :)
If you are looking for something sweet, and have limited time, money, or ingredients, give these a shot, I don't think you will be disappointed!
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