When my husband told me the other day that he loves me more than peanut butter, I knew that after 26 years, our marriage remained on solid footing.
The man is clearly passionate about the stuff, smearing it on his waffles for breakfast, swirling it onto ice cream, blending it into smoothies and simply eating it by the spoonful. For his birthday last year, he was thrilled with the gift I got him: a selection of peanut butter-flavored stouts (which taste much better than they sound).
So, I figured I couldn’t go wrong making him a batch of peanut butter cookies for Valentine’s Day. In this version, the nut butter is the primary ingredient, rather than being second to flour and refined sugar, as it is in many recipes. In fact, these cookies have no flour or refined sugar at all because they are sweetened with date sugar.
Get the recipe: Flourless Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies
I’ve been playing around with date sugar a lot lately and really enjoying the results. Made simply of dried, ground dates, it offers a whole-food way to sweeten foods. It’s not sugar-free — the dates’ inherent sugar is what makes it sweet — but it also contains the fruit’s fiber and antioxidants, and it has a gentler impact on blood sugar than refined sugar.
7 peanut butter and chocolate recipes, including blondies and bars
Date sugar looks a lot like brown sugar, but because it doesn’t melt like sugar does, you can’t simply swap it one-for-one. While it doesn’t work in every recipe, it is ideal in these cookies, providing not only sweetness but also a subtle date flavor that pairs beautifully with the peanut butter and chocolate.
To make the cookies, you simply beat the peanut butter with softened butter, egg and vanilla extract, then add the date sugar, which has been mixed with some baking soda. Then stir in the chocolate and scoop the batter onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Giving each dough mound the classic crosshatch pattern with the tines of a fork gives the cookies visual appeal and also flattens them, as they don’t spread much with baking. Once the cookies are out of the oven, it’s best to wait until they are completely cool before eating to ensure they firm up, but I won’t pretend I could resist gobbling up a soft, warm one.
These cookies are richly peanut-buttery with a pleasant crumbly texture, luscious with melted chocolate, and very subtly sweet with a lovely hint of date flavor — ideal for a peanut-buttery date night dessert.
Get the recipe: Flourless Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies
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