These soft and cakey peanut butter cookies are refined sugar-free and sweetened with honey.
Here's a simple and scrumptious cookie recipe from
The Little Big Book of Comfort Food. Featuring over 100 charming, full color vintage illustrations, this sweet little 350 page hardcover book would make aperfect gift.
All Natural Honey Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes about 16 2½-inch cookies (or 30 smaller cookies)
Adapted from The Little Big Book of Comfort Food
We're fortunate to have a local source forwonderful raw honey, and one of my goals is to start baking with this natural sweetener more often. As soon as I saw this recipe I knew I had to try it. What goes better with honey than peanut butter?
These soft, cakey, not terribly sweetcookies taste even better the next day.This makesa small batch, so you may want to double the recipe. Ice cold milk is a must.
I've been using
ice cream scoopsto portion out cookie dough since I started baking commercially back in (gasp) 1985, and have had some of mine for nearly as long. They effortlessly make perfectly shaped cookies, and are a very worthwhile investment. I have five or six different sizes; the scoop I used to make these is about 1½ Tablespoons and is similar to
this one.
Larger scoops, like
this sizeand
this size,are great for muffin batter and giant cookies, such asmy
Big, Soft, and Chewy Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies. I use a
tomake the
Baby Chocolate Chip and Toffee Shortbread Cookies,and an
itty bitty scoopmakesdarling—though slightly time consuming—minicookies.
A couple of heavy duty
are a great investment, and once youtry them you'll never want to use anything else. I use them for everything from baking scones to roasting brussels sprouts and have had some of mine for 20 years.
As always, I urge you to use local and organic ingredients; they really do make a difference and often don't cost much more. We love Trader Joe's organic peanut butter, and it's just $2.99 a jar. Organic butter often goes on sale this time of year and freezes well for months, and organic flours are practically mainstream. Look for local honey and real farm eggs at the farmers' market.
is a greatresourcefor findinglocally produced food.
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup creamy or crunchy organic peanut butter (I used creamy)
4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick/2 ounces) organic butter, softened
1 large real farm egg (maybe even a green one!)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose organic flour
1/4 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder (I like Rumford brand)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Heat the oven to 375°. Line a heavy duty baking sheet with
unbleached parchment paper
(you can use the same sheet for the whole batch of cookies).
2. Put the honey, peanut butter, butter, egg, and vanilla into a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speedfor 2 minutes (I use a hand held mixer).
3. Gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. This is a very soft dough; I chilled it in the freezer for 20 minutes to make it easier to scoop.
4. Drop cookies onto the baking sheet, and then use a fork to gentlypress a crosshatch patterninto thetop of each one.
5. Bake until lightly browned, about 12 to 15 minutes (a little less for smaller cookies). Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool. Store in an airtight container or freeze.
Other twists on peanut butter cookies from food blogging friends:
from David Lebovitz
from Baking Bites
from Gluten-Free Goddess
from Kalyn's Kitchen
from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
Sweet tooth still not satisfied? Try these other Farmgirl Fare treats:
Cookies and Bars
(and how to hug a sheep)
Muffins and Scones
(tasty any time of year)
(four different flavors)
Cakes, Tarts, and More
© FarmgirlFare.com, the soft and chewy foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares recipes, stories, photos from her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres—and everything's better with cookies.
