Cool sunny days, Chilly billy nights. Darker out earlier every day. You don’t really need an excuse to make cookies, but this weather is a good of an excuse as any. All I want to do is throw on my coziest warm sweater, make a humongous hot cup of coffee or tea (or both), grab a book or one of the knitting projects I abandoned last spring, and bake. It’s not just me right? It’s that time of year. Hunker down and be cozy. And it’s just the best.
So cookies. I knew I wanted to make them, and honestly I was just going to go straight up peanut butter, but something in my brain just told me I needed to add jalapeños. It might have to do with the peanut sauce I was making the night before which I add jalapeños sauce to, or maybe it was the fact that a couple of a days before I picked a million (not really, but probably like 200) jalapeños at the farm to pickle and freeze for the coming winter months and just happen to have jalapeños on the brain. Whatever the reason, I just did it.
Going to straight out and say it. No, these are not gross or weird. They are sweet nutty peanut buttery with bits of slight hot spicy jalapeño goodness. For real, these cookies are things of greatness. The people that I have given them too have declared them the best. So good that the mr said I had to tell everyone that he thinks these cookies are over the top AMAZING! He ate 5 before I was even done baking the second batch.
I had to hide the rest and now I deal out cookies for good behavior. Haha
So when that feeling of the need to bake hits, why not grab a few hot peppers and get down on it with there cookies. You will not be sorry. Or maybe you will because you will end up eating shit load of cookies. (But that is totally A-okay)
To the cookies!
The stuff. Brown and white sugar, peanut butter, jalapeños, and flour, baking powder and soda, salt, vanilla, and plant butter and plant milk.
Cream together the butter and peanut butter with the sugars until completely combined and kind of fluffy. Add in the vanilla and milk and mix until completely incorporated, Mix all the dry ingredients together then add those in and mix until it forms dough. The dough might look a little crumbly but when you pick up a chunk, it is easy squished into a ball.
And for jalapenos, just remove stems and seeds and dice into little tiny pieces.
Mix in jalapeños. Yup, it;s happening.
Grab chunks of dough and roll into balls. Roll each ball in a little sugar then place on baking sheet. Using a fork (or whatever you want) squish each ball down to about 3/4 inch thick.
Cookie dough going in to oven and cookies coming out. All green studded and golden brown. And the small, Amazing! I love going through the day smelling like a giant cookie. It’s the best.
Make sure to cool those cookies on a wire rack when they come out of the oven.
And there you have it.
Cookies for you but share if you care. Or not. HAHA
-C
Peanut Butter jalapeño Cookies
makes about two dozen cookies
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar plus about 1/3 cup for rolling dough in
1/3 cup plant milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 jalapeños (2/3 cup finely diced)
Preheat oven to 350
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and the 1/2 cup white sugar until competlety combined and slightly fluffy. II used a wooden spoon but you could do it with a mixer if you wanted to) Add in the milk and vanilla and mix to combined. In a sepereate bowl mix together the flour salt, baking soda and baking powder. Dump the dry into the wet and mix until combined. The dough might seem a little crumbly but when you pick up a hunk is should easily form a ball.
For jalapeños. Just remove the stems and seeds then dice into very small little pieces. Then toss them into the cookie batter and mix until evenly inpcorporated.
Grab a baking sheet and a little bowl for remaining sugar. Scoop tablespoons sizes chunks of dough and roll them into balls. Roll each ball in the remaining sugar and place on baking sheet. Using a fork or a the bottom of a cup, squish each ball down to about 3/4 inch thick. Then when the baking sheet is full, place cookies in oven.
Bake cookies for 13-15 minutes or until a nice golden brown. Remove from oven and place cookies on a wire rack to cool.
Then eat them.