Hearty and Healthy Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

Ladies and Gentlemen… we have a winner!  I think I found another Top 10 recipe!  I love peanut butter.  Usually I want peanut butter and chocolate, but sometimes you just need a peanut butter cookie.  

Last weekend I was bored and decided to bake.  As you know my other peanut butter cookies are my favorite of all time… but these are a close second.  Adam actually liked them better because they are heartier and not as sweet.  My sister Kate sent me this recipe a couple weeks ago and I couldn’t wait to try them.  NY Times says these recipes are a part of their “recipes for health” series.  At the end of the article it even stated that each cookie is only 131 calories.  That being said… I could care less about calories and really only care about how they taste, and these are good!

The whole wheat flour makes the cookie much heartier than my other PB cookies.  When you eat them you feel like you are eating something with substance.  While the NY Times article called them “crisp” I would disagree.  They aren’t as soft as some cookies, but they definitely aren’t crisp, and the peanut butter in the center makes them super Peanut Buttery!  Plus, because the sugar is lower than usual cookies you can eat them guilt free… which means I ate at least 3 or 4 at a time. 

The only issue with these cookies is they have to be in the fridge for a couple of hours or over night.  I solved that problem by making pumpkin bread pudding to tide me over while I waited!  All and all these cookies are a new staple.  If I hadn’t eaten them all I would have them this morning for breakfast with a cup of tea.  Now that I think about it… they resemble Digestives but with a Peanut Butter taste!  YUM! 

Hearty and Healthy Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

(Makes 24 cookies)

1 ¼ cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

¼ tsp salt

1 stick butter (cut into pieces)

½ cup Peanut Butter + Peanut Butter for between each cookie

¾ cup Brown Sugar

1 egg

Mix the dry ingredients together and set aside.  Cream the butter and peanut butter.  Then add the sugar, mix, and add the egg.  Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until completely incorporated.

Spoon the dough onto a piece of wax paper about 14in long and 2in wide.  Wrapping in wax paper, roll the dough into a log.  Remove the dough once it is shaped into a log, cover it in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for several hours or over night.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Cut the log in half and leave one half in the fridge.  Cut the remaining half into thin pieces, no bigger than ¼ inch.  Place them on a silpat or parchment paper (12 on a sheet).  Put ¼ tsp peanut butter on the center of each piece of cookie dough, then taking the remaining dough out of the fridge, cut into small pieces (1/4 inch) and place on top of the peanut butter making a sandwich.  You can seal the cookies by pressing gently on the edges, but I forgot that step and they still turned out great.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, turn half way through and move top to bottom if you are baking both sheets at the same time.  Remove and cool; although these are super good warm (and frozen too!).