Perfect Peanut Butter OR PB & J OR PB with Chocolate Center Cookies

Author: Sweet Green Kitchen’s Jen Jones

Adapted from Dreena Burton’s “Vive le Vegan”

Makes about 24-26 cookies

Ingredients:

¾ cup All Purpose Unbleached Flour

¾ cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1 ½ tsp Baking Powder

¾ tsp Baking Soda

3 Tbsp Granulated Sugar (I use organic evaporated cane sugar)

½ tsp Sea Salt

½ cup + 2 Tbsp Natural Unsweetend Peanut Butter (do not substitute)

¾ cup Pure Maple Syrup (the good stuff, no Aunt Jemima or the like)

½ tsp Molasses

1 ½ tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

4 ½ Tbsp Canola Oil (or other oil of your choice)

Optional Additions:

Raspberry Jam – (Strawberry, Apricot, Blackberry, etc, whatever your family prefers)

About ¼ cup Chocolate Chips – I use 60% Cocoa Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a medium bowl, add in all dry ingredients and whisk until evenly combined.

In a liquid measure, pour in the maple syrup, molasses, vanilla extract and oil. Then add in ½ cup of the peanut butter.  Stir thoroughly to combine.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir well. Next add in the remaining 2 Tbsp of peanut butter, but do not mix completely.  You want ribbons of peanut butter throughout.

Use 2 ungreased cookie sheets. Measure out rounded tablespoons of batter onto the cookie sheet, 12-13 per sheet.  Do not flatten the dough.

If adding Jam – Using a finger or the back end of a butter knife, make small depressions into the center of each peanut butter dough ball. Add about ¼ tsp of Jam into the center well of each cookie.

If adding Chocolate – Using a finger or the back end of a butter knife, make small depressions into the center of each peanut butter dough ball. Add about 3-5 chocolate chips into the center well of each cookie.  Note, that the chocolate chips will soften while baking but not completely melt together.  Once baked, while the cookies are cooling, if you like, swirl together the softened chocolate chips in each cookie’s center, using the tip of a butter knife or spoon, until you have one blob of chocolate, instead of separate chips or leave as is if you prefer, great either way.

Bake for 10-11 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet.  They will fall apart if moved too soon.  After they have cooled slightly, move the cookies with a spatula to a cooling rack and Enjoy!

Recipe Notes: This recipe is Vegan, use Vegan chocolate chips to keep it that way or non Vegan if it’s not necessary for you. Full disclosure, I don’t use Vegan chocolate, my favorite for these and most other recipes involving chocolate, is Ghiradelli 60% Cocoa chips, they are a little bigger than your average chocolate chip and perfectly bittersweet.

A note about the peanut butter, I only use all natural peanut butter with no added sugar or any other ingredients but salt. Sometimes, I’ll make my own at the health food store which works perfectly here as well.