Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Ok...down one week until baby Sosa arrives and I still have a sweet chocolate craving, but I don't want to succumb to all the sugar of a normal cookie, so I have been experimenting. I have 4 jars of natural peanut butter in my cupboard (no sugar added) and need to find a way to use those as well. After searching online, I found a recipe at www.allrecipes.com and made some modifications by reducing the sugar, increasing the amount of peanut butter, and using a high percentage of cocoa chocolate chips (which uses less sugar).

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup 60% cocoa or higher chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Let cool for 1 or 2 minutes on sheet before removing, or they will fall apart.

Truly Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Early Out because of snow (which now seems to have stopped) and a something sweet craving have lead to the search for a truly sugar free peanut butter cookie recipe. Why peanut butter do you ask and not chocolate like I normally demand? An over abundance of Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter in my cupboard. And when I say I am looking for a sugar free recipe, I mean without even sugar substitute, only natural ingredients.  I didn't want to give in completely to my sugar cravings (Valentine's Day was difficult, I ate an entire bag of M&M's by myself, UHG! Talk about not healthy!) and I wanted to find some healthy and unprocessed treats for the kids to enjoy as well, so my search led to a vegan peanut butter and banana recipe from About.com with some modifications of course!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup natural peanut butter without sugar
2 ripe bananas (overripe is fine), mashed
3 TBSP honey vanilla Greek Yogurt
2 TBSP honey
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, I mashed bananas with a fork until smooth.

Then, I added peanut butter, Greek yogurt, honey, and apple sauce and mixed well. Next, I added the remaining ingredients and stirred until well combined. A little note, before adding the oats and flour, I thought the batter tasted divine! Once I added the dry ingredients, I thought the recipe became a little bland...

Even though the batter tasted slightly bland, I went ahead and dropped spoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet (I line mine with aluminum foil, just in case the cookies stick, to make clean up easier) and bake 13-16 minutes at 350 degrees, or until lightly browned on the edges.

The cookie was not as sweet after baking and was somewhat bland (like I didn't know that already after tasting the batter), but not terrible by any means. My youngest son ate the cookie without complaint and even asked for seconds and thirds!

I think next time I will add some salt and maybe more peanut butter. I think the peanut butter flavor could have been stronger.

So instead of throwing the batch and starting from scratch, I thought...hmmmm, how could I add more flavor without wasting these cookies?  How about a topping for Greek yogurt! and wouldn't you know, it tasted just like granola mixed in with yogurt, SO YUMMY! I will try this recipe again, but with some additional modifications. I will let you know how it works!