I needed a quick, sweet and gluten free ending for an impromptu dinner. These 4-ingredient cookies fit the bill. With all the the fixins on hand, dessert was ready in no time. They paired well with chocolate peanut butter ice cream.
Salted Peanut Butter Cookies
Yield 26 to 28 cookies with a 1 2/3 scoop.
1 3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups smooth peanut butter (=16.3 oz. jar) Skippy recommended.
Coarse-grained flaked sea salt, to finish
Preheat the oven to 350°degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until smooth and completely incorporated; you shouldn’t be able to see any ribbons of peanut butter. The dough is ready when it has the consistency of Play-Doh.
Scoop or spoon the dough into balls. Check out Smitten Kitchen’s recipe to see the shape of cookie that Ovenly Bakery is known for. The shape didn’t hold for me….but still delish!
Sprinkle the dough balls lightly with coarse-grained sea salt just before baking. Bake smaller cookies for 14 to 15 minutes and larger for 18 to 20. When finished, cookies should be golden at edges. They’ll need to set on the sheet for a minute or two before they can be lifted intact to a cooling sheet.
Do ahead: You can make the dough in advance and either refrigerate it for a couple days or freeze it longer. If I were going to freeze it, Scoop it first. You can bake them right from the freezer.
About chilling the dough: The Ovenly recipe says you can scoop and bake the cookies right away, but they keep their shape better if you chill them in the freezer for 15 minutes first. I think if you also chill the dough for 15 minutes before scooping it, it will keep the shape.
Smitten Kitchen/Ovenly cookbook
