Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

When you think of a particularly loved unique treat, something from your childhood that you didn’t get all the time that was special, there are a few things that can come to mind. A small candy from your mother’s purse when you were being extra good. A slice of thick, frosted cake at a birthday party. Those soft, buttery, crumbly cookies that only your grandma knew how to make just so.

I have an unusual one from my childhood. Not an unusual food so much as a food that is unusual to think of as special.

Peanut butter.

Oh goodness, I love me some peanut butter.

Unfortunately, peanut butter did not love my brother. He is one of those poor people who have to look at that “May contain…” line on ingredient lists because if it “May contain: peanuts” he “May go into: anaphylaxis”. And so, (understandably) my home growing up was a no peanut zone.

When I ventured out of my home and into the home of friends, I would stand in the kitchen, peanut butter jar in one hand, spoon in the other.

This is not a simplification of the situation for comedic effect, it’s just what I did.

And don’t get me started on peanut butter cups. Those things were absolutely magical.

One thing that never did seem to capture me was peanut butter cookies. Generally hard, crunchy forms of peanut butter, it felt more like a peanut cookie than a peanut butter cookie.

That’s why I jumped at this recipe when I heard the “Flourless” aspect resulted in soft cookies.

On top of that they actually looked pretty easy, basically throwing things in a bowl, stirring, portioning, baking… eating.

I tell you, they are fabulous for how easy they are, and would still be fabulous if they were more difficult.

And a little touch of salt on top brings out that much more flavour.

Move over spoon, there’s a new peanut butter vehicle in town.

Adapted from Recchiuti

Ingredients

• 1 cup natural unsalted peanut butter (Try to go for one that has “peanuts” as the only ingredient. I used Adam’s.)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup dark chocolate, roughly chopped (this was approx. 3 oz. for me, but it’s all about how roughly you chop it. I like big chunks!)
• fleur de sel to sprinkle on cookies

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line the bottoms of two 12-by-18-inch sheet pans with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, stir the peanut butter, sugar, egg, baking soda and kosher salt until combined.
3. Stir in the chopped chocolate.
4. Using a small, greased ice cream scoop, measure out the dough in teaspoon sized balls.
5. Place the dough on the prepared pans, spacing them 2 inches apart.
6. Bake on the middle shelves of the oven, rotating the pans 180 degrees halfway through the baking time, until lightly golden and spread to a puffy mound, about 12 to 14 minutes.
7. Sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel.
8. Let cool completely on the pans on wire racks.

Makes approx. 2 dozen. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to week

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