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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Jordan Powell says
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Taryn says
I was looking through all your recipes and came across this one, and I’m convinced I have to try making it! I’m not a big fan of peanut butter, so I think I may try subbing pumpkin to make pumpkin gingerbread cookies…yum 🙂
Teresa says
These are amazing! Not kidding, I almost fell over when I took my first bite. The flavors have marvelous depth… I wouldn’t add a thing. I made the recipe exactly, following gram measurements, except that I left out the chocolate chips (they are, believe it or not, perfect without them!) , and used coconut sugar (I thought it was more similar to sucunat than the brown sugar we had). I used spelt flour, and made them into 8 normal-sized cookies, rather than 16. They are just the right size for my family. Anyway, these are amazing! Thank you for the recipe, Katie! 🙂
Sarah Dirk says
If I were to sub the apple sauce with coconut oil would I use 2 tbsp as well?
Diana says
I don’t know if powdered ginger and ground ginger are the same or not, but I used ground ginger in this recipe. I didn’t taste the ginger at all – to me, the cookies just tasted like peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. But they were incredible peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, with a delicious taste and texture, so I’m not complaining!
Vivian says
These are absolutely delicious and very easy to make, too. I used almond butter and also added a small amount of diced crystallized ginger that I had sitting in my cabinet and wanted to try to use up. Highly recommend.
Kat says
Delicious! Looking at the recipe I was sceptic….but your recipes are always yummy and these are no exception!
Ruth-Ann says
I made these last week to give as gifts. Followed the recipe as is but the cookies remained quite soft and falling apart even after cooling on the rack. I had to put them back in the oven so it took about double the stated time. They look nice and tasted ok but not gingerbready – the peanut butter overpowered it. Maybe my ginger powder isn’t strong but I did add a bit more just in case. I still gave them but left the word ‘gingerbread’ out of the label. Perhaps a different milder nut butter would work, but then this would be an even more expensive cookie! (sucanat is not cheap!). Any ideas on upping the flavor?
Jason Sanford says
Sucanat really is what gives it the gingerbread flavor, which came through when I made them, but true that maybe our nut butters were different. I used a natural one from a regular grocery store, but not Jif or Skippy, which would be sweeter. Maybe try subbing one of the tbsp applesauce for molasses? Or half of a tbsp?