February 28: Stir and Bake Peanut Butter Protein Cookies

Stir-and-Bake Peanut Butter Protein Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (2.3 oz) white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vanilla flavored protein powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons (1 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
5 tablespoons turbinado (raw) sugar
1 tablespoon mild molasses
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and place a rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with nonstick foil or parchment paper.
2. Mix the flour, protein powder, salt and baking soda together in a small bowl; set aside.
3. Beat the butter, applesauce, sugar, molasses, vanilla and peanut butter together in a second bowl. Stir in the egg. Add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and stir until blended. Add the chocolate chips and stir.
4. Scoop up tablespoonfuls of dough and shape them into neat rounds. If you don't want to bake all the dough at once, just scoop up what you need and chill the rest. The cookies don't spread much or change shape much, so try to make the mounds of dough look nice rather than scruffy. Arrange the mounds evenly apart on the baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes, or until the cookies appear set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I actually had all these ingredients on hand except the applesauce!

I used all purpose flour even though I had whole wheat because I didn't have "white whole wheat"

This was before I added the flour mixture. The picture doesn't accurately show how dark the batter was

Ahh...much better.

Thoughts: This was a very straightforward recipe. I had some extra time so I thought why not? and made this cookie. I doubled the recipe because the original only yields 12. I used a rounded tablespoon to get the circle shape and baked them for about 11 minutes. This was a soft, lighter, fluffier cookie. I liked it quite a bit.  It mostly tastes like peanut butter. I didn't tell Patrick about the protein powder until after he said he liked it :)