Cookies make me happy.
These homemade peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies taste like the love child of a gingerbread man and a jar of Skippy.
Please don’t try to picture that in your mind. 😕
Try one and you’ll be smiling all day. People will start to wonder about you. Why are you smiling like that? And of course you can answer:
I just like to smile.
Smiling’s my favorite.
Or you could tell them the truth: you’re smiling because you just made a batch of super-delicious chocolate peanut butter gingerbread cookies and are keeping them all for yourself. But be warned that if you go this route, they’ll expect you to share. So honesty might not be the best policy.
Initially these were to be gingerbread cookies with a hint of peanut butter. However, they turned out awesomely peanut buttery and have just an allusion of gingerbread flavor.
Peanut Butter Gingerbread Chocolate Chunk Cookies
(Peanut Butter Christmas Cookies)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter – or Sunbutter, almond butter, or cashew butter (110g)
- 1/2 tsp powdered ginger – less if you only want a slight gingerbread flavor
- 1/3 cup Sucanat – You can sub regular brown sugar; it just won’t be nearly as gingerbread-y (45g)
- pinch stevia or 1 extra tbsp of the sucanat or sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp flour (spelt, white, ww pastry, and Bob’s gf all-purpose all work) (24g)
- tiny pinch of salt if desired (I add 1/16 tsp and use Whole Foods peanut butter, which is salted)
- 2-4 tbsp chocolate chunks, or chips, or broken-up chocolate bar
- 2 tbsp applesauce (30g)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract (4g)
In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients and stir very well. Put the peanut butter in a separate bowl (and if it is from the fridge, heat it until you can more-easily stir it), then add the applesauce and vanilla to the pb bowl and stir well. Combine the two bowls, and stir to form a dough, then squish into balls with your hands. Chill the balls at least thirty minutes in the fridge or ten in the freezer, during which time you are preheating the oven to 350F. Then cook 8 minutes. They will look quite underdone when they come out, but that’s ok: let them cool and do not touch for at least another 10 minutes. For soft cookies, store in a plastic container. For crispier cookies, store in a glass container. Makes 12-16 cookies.
View Peanut Butter Cookies Nutrition Facts
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Katie!!! These sound so amazing! I was going through the list and then realized that I had everything so I made them right away. They are in the oven right now and I can’t wait to try one! I did add some nutmeg and allspice as well as 1 tsp of molasses instead of the stevia. I had to add in some extra flour then as well. The ingredients in this recipe are similar to my gingerbread smoothie that I make when I add in some chocolate soy milk. I love the gingerbread chocolate combo!
Ah. The added molasses is a good idea (especially since I am using regular brown sugar). I did double the ginger though for more of a bite. 🙂
I doubled the ginger too, but I think I could have added even more! Or maybe if I had added molasses. I used dark brown sugar. But any way you make them they are so good! I made them for a party tomorrow and I think I already ate to many and don’t have enough for work!!
At least they are easy to make more. 🙂 I ate them fast myself. 🙂
Just made a batch of these and they are DELICIOUS!!!! And kid approved by my 3 year old son and his 4 year old cousin!! 🙂 Elf and Love, Actually are two favorites of mine! Katie, I live in North Dakota but am spending Christmas in Texas and am SO happy to be here and out of the cold!!! I love your blog and your recipes, have a great holiday season!!
Thank you for trying them!
Hopefully we can have a warm winter for you… sometimes it actually can get pretty cold here. Two years ago we had a blizzard with like 10 inches of snow. (Hoping that doesn’t happen this year!)
Although… I guess it also depends on the part of Texas you’re in.
Wow check out these beauties! As always, Katie, you do not disapoint.
These look delish!
Where do you find sucanent? Is that like stevia? Could you sub stevia or splenda and if so how much would I use?
Thanks!
T
Here ya go! 🙂
http://www.wholesomesweeteners.com/brands/wholesome_sweeteners/fair_trade_certified_organic_sucanat.html
I’ve been craving a good gingerbread cookie and you can’t go wrong with the addition of chocolate and PB! Love Elf and Polar Express!
What an awesome combo for the season! I just recently made (and posted to my blog) a peanut butter cookie bread! I love making peanut butter as versatile as possible! 🙂
Kristen @ bakingblissful.blogspot.com
just came out of my oven. I can vouch that the Almond Butter, Coconut flour, Ideal Brown Xylitol baking sweetener version using semi-sweet mini chips turned out fab!
These look delicious! I think I will make them today and add cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of allspice.
Hiiii I love your blog and this is my first time commenting 😀 I am definitely going to try out this recipe tomorrow and I have also made the flourless oatmeal raisin and choc chip cookies which are amaaaazing! I love how they were very soft and a few days later they were crunchier but they both tasted soooo good! I can’t wait to try more recipes that are really healthy too 🙂 But I don’t think we have sucanat here in the UK so I’ll have to use brown sugar
Aw hi Dharshi! 🙂
Hiii Katie 😀 I just made them and they taste sooo nice! Thanks for the recipe and the weight measurements of the ingredients were really helpful too 🙂
How can this recipe make 12-16 cookies? Are they thumbnail sized? I usually only get 18 cookies out of a recipe that calls for 3/4 of a cup of flour and you only call for 3 tbsp.
You are forgetting the peanut butter, I think. The bulk of the recipe is made up of peanut butter, not flour. There are some peanut butter cookie recipes that call for no flour at all. Those aren’t vegan, though.