Vegan (ish) Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this super easy recipe on 101cookbooks.com. I had a craving for peanut butter cookies and chocolate too, so I thought Why not combine the two? I had never had a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie before, but now I have and I adore them. It's the Reese's Pieces of the cookie world. The cookies themselves have a great texture and aren't too sweet, and the chocolate is ooey-gooey like it should be. I'll admit that this recipe IS vegan, however mine aren't entirely because I used regular chocolate chips. If you have vegan chocolate chips then this recipe remains dairy and egg free. I chose to make mine tiny for easy consumption, and in a vain attempt at not feeling guilty for wolfing them down. Warning: you WILL want to wolf them down! Be prepared. The dough is very thick and hard to handle so I used a small melon baller to finagle in onto the baking sheet.

(As I'm writing this my husband dashes into the room and snitches a handful off the cooling rack, and he doesn't even really like peanut butter cookies, having asked me earlier to make plain chocolate chip instead. They're just THAT good!)

Ingredients:

2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Spelt Flour or Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (I used all-purp)

1 tsp Baking Soda

3/4 tsp Fine Grain Sea Salt

1 cup Organic Chunky Natural Peanut Butter (recipe calls for chunky but I used smooth and it was fine)

1 cup Maple Syrup

1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 1/2 tsps Vanilla Extract

3/4 cup Chocolate Chips, or to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine dry ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl
3. Combine wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl
4. Once wet ingredients are mixed smooth, incorporate dry ingredients. Stir until barely combined, mixture will be a little dusty.
5. Let sit for five minutes and them mix again, only once or twice. Fold in chocolate chips until they are more or less evenly distributed
6. Cover a baking sheet in parchment paper (I sprayed non-stick onto the baking sheet to stick the parchment paper down, and then on the paper too - I'm paranoid about sticking)
7. Apply dough to baking sheet anyway you like. You can make bigger cookies, or smaller ones like mine (I used a melon baller and then pressed down on each gently with the back of a small fork. If you want to do the traditional full criss-cross the recipe warns you to cool your dough first, for about an hour, otherwise it'll be too gluey and won't work)
8. Bake for 10 - 11 minutes
9. Eat one before it's fully cooled, getting chocolate all over your fingers (<-- the most important step!)

To see the original recipe, or to browse others please check out www.101cookbooks.com