Honey peanut butter cookies (recipe)
If (like me) you love regular peanut butter cookies, just imagine how delicious honey peanut butter cookies are!
But what makes these cookies even better is the honey from African Bronze! Not only is it fair trade and organic honey, it also has a very special flavour quality to it because it’s wild. Imagine honey with a hint of blackstrap molasses and spice and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the complexity of the taste! And so it lends itself absolutely beautifully to these cookies.
If you did substitute another type of honey in these cookies, I would actually recommend cutting it with blackstrap molasses, to give it that tanginess and flavour depth that the African Bronze has. These cookies will be totally different (and I’d say less good) without the complex flavour of the dark honey!
While I usually post vegan recipes on the blog, this is one recipe where the vegans might need to sit out. Unfortunately, during test baking, vegan egg replacements didn’t do very well, and there’s also (of course) the honey question. So while I still love vegan recipes, this one isn’t super vegan-friendly this time. Sorry, folks!
But what I’m not sorry about is how delicious these cookies are. Seriously. They’re chewy, not too sweet, and full of honey and peanut goodness! And you can feel good about supporting fair trade producers that are producing more sustainable goods.
So without further ado, let’s get into the honey peanut butter cookies!
Honey Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
- 1/2 cup African Bronze wild forest honey (see note)
- 1/2 cup golden cane sugar (see note)
- 1/4 cup butter or margarine
- 2 ea eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Dry ingredients
- 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 pinch ground Ceylon cinnamon (see note)
Before baking
- Extra cane sugar for rolling (see note)
Instructions
- Cream peanut butter, honey (see note), butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs and vanilla until the mixture lightens and gets a bit thicker.
- Add dry ingredients and mix just until they're incorporated. (Over-beating the cookies will make them tough!) The dough will be very soft.
- Chill the dough for 2 hours or overnight before baking.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Using a rounded tablespoon of dough for each cookie, roll the dough into balls and roll in additional sugar, if desired. (See note.)
- Place cookies on a parchment- or silpat-lined cookie sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart. Press a criss-cross pattern on the top of each cookie with a fork.
- Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- African Bronze honey has deep molasses tones and a tanginess that other honeys don’t have. If you opt to use a different kind of honey, please note that the cookies will not have as much flavour. If you can’t get this brand, it may be better to replace a couple of tablespoons of the honey with blackstrap molasses to get a more authentic flavour.
- Golden cane sugar is a less refined sugar than regular white sugar, and that means it has a little of the molasses left for extra flavour! My pick is the fairtrade, organic golden cane sugar from Camino.
- Ceylon cinnamon is also called true cinnamon, because most “cinnamon” sold in stores is actually a cheaper cousin of cinnamon called cassia. Ceylon/true cinnamon has a more complex and higher-quality flavour and is labeled as true or Ceylon cinnamon. I recommend Cha’s Organics’ true cinnamon.
- Extra sugar for rolling isn’t strictly necessary, but it does make the outside crispy and make the cookies a bit sweeter. In fact, you get a better payoff when you have the sugar on the outside, so it’s part of what keeps these reduced-sugar and still tasting nice and sweet!
These treats are, of course, much sweeter if you use fair trade ingredients!
What kinds of things do you usually use the honey in your pantry for? Let us know in the comments!
In solidarity,
Lia
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I’m plant based and I’m excited to try this recipe, with a couple of minor tweaks!
Glad you were inspired by it, Cindy! I haven’t found that it works well with vegan egg replacements, but do let us know if you find something that doesn’t muck them up! 🙂
I recently found peanut butter without any additional salt in it and I want to incorporate it in some recipes.
These cookies look like the perfect recipe to start with!
They would indeed! Natural peanut butter works great in these! That’s what I usually use as well. 🙂