Three ingredient peanut butter cookie
For Christmas Eve dinner at Mark and Cindy's house, I brought a couple of side dishes and some cookies. Regarding the cookies, I decided to make two different kinds of cookies. I was going to make snickerdoodles but didn't end up doing so- why not is a long and boring story- and double chocolate chip M & M cookies. I made the latter batter on December 23, put it in the fridge and baked the cookies on the 24th- nice and fresh. Since the snickerdoodles weren't going to pan out, I had to come up with another type of cookie. I wanted something easy to prepare, ideally one that would not make a tremendous mess in the kitchen (we were hosting Christmas the next day) and one for which I had all of the ingredients. In the back of my mind, an idea was forming: three ingredient peanut butter cookies.
I have a terrible memory but can recall certain random facts clearly. One recipe I recalled from days gone by of perusing Pinterest was a recipe for peanut butter cookies that only took three ingredients.
I had to do a google search of "three ingredient peanut butter cookies" because I couldn't recall the exact recipe but I knew that one such existed. Sure enough, my search brought back numerous hits and I selected the Allrecipes link for the recipe. Sure enough, just three ingredients: peanut butter, sugar and an egg.
I made the cookies with four ingredients- in some I added a Hershey's Kiss in the middle and in some I added a miniature Reese's Cup. I made the cookies a second time a couple of weeks ago for a post holiday get together. This time, I added Hershey's Kisses to all of them because I didn't have any Reese's.
Here are my thoughts on making peanut butter cookies with just three ingredients (or four if adding candy to the middle):
* There is a reason most recipes for baked sweet goods include dry ingredients- flour, baking soda, salt- those dry ingredients make the final product not just taste better but also have a better texture.
So, why would anyone make a version like the three ingredient peanut butter cookie when a better one could be made?
* For starters, making a batch of three ingredient PB cookie is quicker than making traditional PB cookies. I had the ingredients together and stirred in probably three minutes.
* Also, the fewer ingredients involved, the less mess. Making a very uncomplicated cookie makes little mess which saves even more time since clean up is super easy.
* I prefer the taste of traditional peanut butter cookies over the three ingredient one as I alluded to earlier. However, as long as I have the notion to make peanut butter blossoms (pb cookies with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle) as opposed to a plain peanut butter cookie, then this is the recipe that I'll use. When adding candy to the middle of the cookie, the candy becomes the piece d' resistance in the cookie. The taste of baked cookie portion of the cookie isn't as important when there's a nice bit of chocolate in the middle of it.
* The recipe that I used didn't make many cookies. Sometimes, that's a good thing. If I know there will be multiple sweet treats at the event for which I'm baking them, I don't need to worry about having a huge amount of one type of treat. Both times that I made these, I made the cookies and another type of sweet treat. Plus, at both events that I made these for, there were other desserts, too, besides my contribution. So, not having a huge amount of any one item was fine and actually preferable as they took up less space.
Here is the recipe that I used to make slightly less better tasting than traditional peanut butter cookies but much easier and quicker:
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookie from allrecipes.com
I adapted the directions of the recipe a little bit since I added candy to the middle of mine:
Mix 1 cup of sugar, one cup of peanut butter and one egg in a bowl.
Shape into small balls and place on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 9-10 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees.
When cookies come out of the oven, place candy (Hershey's Kiss or Reese's Miniature PB Cup or any miniature candy) in the middle.
For the cookies that I made on Christmas Eve, I rolled the dough in colored sugar before I baked them. I loved how they turned out.
I have a terrible memory but can recall certain random facts clearly. One recipe I recalled from days gone by of perusing Pinterest was a recipe for peanut butter cookies that only took three ingredients.
I had to do a google search of "three ingredient peanut butter cookies" because I couldn't recall the exact recipe but I knew that one such existed. Sure enough, my search brought back numerous hits and I selected the Allrecipes link for the recipe. Sure enough, just three ingredients: peanut butter, sugar and an egg.
I made the cookies with four ingredients- in some I added a Hershey's Kiss in the middle and in some I added a miniature Reese's Cup. I made the cookies a second time a couple of weeks ago for a post holiday get together. This time, I added Hershey's Kisses to all of them because I didn't have any Reese's.
Here are my thoughts on making peanut butter cookies with just three ingredients (or four if adding candy to the middle):
* There is a reason most recipes for baked sweet goods include dry ingredients- flour, baking soda, salt- those dry ingredients make the final product not just taste better but also have a better texture.
So, why would anyone make a version like the three ingredient peanut butter cookie when a better one could be made?
* For starters, making a batch of three ingredient PB cookie is quicker than making traditional PB cookies. I had the ingredients together and stirred in probably three minutes.
* Also, the fewer ingredients involved, the less mess. Making a very uncomplicated cookie makes little mess which saves even more time since clean up is super easy.
* I prefer the taste of traditional peanut butter cookies over the three ingredient one as I alluded to earlier. However, as long as I have the notion to make peanut butter blossoms (pb cookies with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle) as opposed to a plain peanut butter cookie, then this is the recipe that I'll use. When adding candy to the middle of the cookie, the candy becomes the piece d' resistance in the cookie. The taste of baked cookie portion of the cookie isn't as important when there's a nice bit of chocolate in the middle of it.
* The recipe that I used didn't make many cookies. Sometimes, that's a good thing. If I know there will be multiple sweet treats at the event for which I'm baking them, I don't need to worry about having a huge amount of one type of treat. Both times that I made these, I made the cookies and another type of sweet treat. Plus, at both events that I made these for, there were other desserts, too, besides my contribution. So, not having a huge amount of any one item was fine and actually preferable as they took up less space.
Here is the recipe that I used to make slightly less better tasting than traditional peanut butter cookies but much easier and quicker:
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookie from allrecipes.com
I adapted the directions of the recipe a little bit since I added candy to the middle of mine:
Mix 1 cup of sugar, one cup of peanut butter and one egg in a bowl.
Shape into small balls and place on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 9-10 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees.
When cookies come out of the oven, place candy (Hershey's Kiss or Reese's Miniature PB Cup or any miniature candy) in the middle.
For the cookies that I made on Christmas Eve, I rolled the dough in colored sugar before I baked them. I loved how they turned out.
These are the ones I made earlier this month for an event.
Not a lot of batter- with two of the three ingredients each consisting of just one cup, there's not going to be a lot of batter.
Speaking of cups, if you measure the sugar first, you can use the same cup measurer for the sugar and the peanut butter.
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