Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies with a Chocolate Drizzle

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter cookies and I have a pretty long history. My mum makes the best (THE BEST!) peanut butter cookies. Like, ever. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of visiting la casa Gill the day after a batch of them was made can confirm this. Yes, a day. They never lasted anything longer than that.

She used to whip up an extra-large batch around Christmas every year. And those peanut butter cookies were the highlight of every Christmas I had. I know everyone stuffs themselves silly on Christmas (as you should, it’s a holiday), but I used to stuff myself silly solely on peanut butter cookies. They were intense, peanut-ty little things that were just the right amount of crumbly and melted in your mouth.

Vegan peanut butter cookies, on the other hand, are new pals of mine, but I love them just as much as I loved my mum’s. They remind me of Christmas at home, even though I haven’t been in Singapore for a Christmas in a long, long time.

Oh-so-chocolatey

So naturally, after making the most delicious vegan peanut butter cookies ever, I go one step further. I cover them. In chocolate. Oh, yes…

Chocolate-covered anything makes it about a gazillion times better. Obviously. If you disagree, I am afraid our friendship cannot continue.

Of course, you can use pretty much any vegan chocolate here. I prefer to use a 75% dark chocolate, but you can go crazy. If a vegan milk chocolate is more your thing, or even (OMG) a vegan WHITE chocolate… Do. It. Anything goes.

All That Peanut Butter

Go to the peanut butter aisle of any supermarket and you will be spoilt for choice. Unless, of course, you live in France and there is NO PEANUT BUTTER ANYWHERE.

Side note – What is that about? I had a very sad, peanut butter-less ski trip. Okay, okay. The ski trip was great, but peanut butter could have made it a lot better.

Anyway, if you live in a peanut-butter-junkie-friendly country, you will now be faced with the daunting task of selecting what peanut butter to use in your vegan peanut butter cookies. Salted or unsalted? Crunchy or smooth? ‘All-natural’ (note the quotation marks), 100% peanuts or one that is a little more processed?

Personally, I usually eat the 100% peanut kinda peanut butter (I usually use this brand). I just like how it is a blank canvas which you can use for pretty much any recipe. But Mama Gill always swore that peanut butter that was a little less ‘all-natural’ made a better cookie. And as the heiress of her peanut butter cookie legacy, I must follow suit. This is a great peanut butter for this recipe, or any home-brand version and your local store. Of course, if the 100%-peanut kind is all you have, or if it is what you prefer to use, it will work as well.

Crunchy or smooth? Personal preference. I like how chunky peanut butter translates to little chunks of peanuts in the cookie itself. Salted or unsalted? Salted is better, because a lil’ salt in a sweet recipe gives it more depth. If yours is unsalted, add a pinch more of salt to the recipe itself.

If you are a fan of peanut butter, you MUST try one my favourite things to put peanut butter in (other than vegan peanut butter cookies, duh). My PB&J lamingtons are so good! Think PB and J sandwich, but instead of good ol’ sandwich bread, we have a fluffy vanilla sponge. Covered in a chocolate ganache. THEN covered in coconut. Uh, huh. Here is the recipe.

An All-Round Good Cookie

As a little treat (as if the vegan peanut butter cookies themselves weren’t a treat!), here is a little recipe video we whipped up for you. It’s our first foray into video making, and it was pretty darn fun. So expect a lot more recipe videos! Follow the blog on Youtube if you want to see more of our speedy little recipe tutorials, or any other cool video content we come up with!

If you have watched the video and are thinking ‘seems simple enough’. It is. SO simple. SO easy peasy. So, make them now. They are also devastatingly easy to finish in one sitting. Which, let’s be honest, isn’t so much of a bad thing.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies with a Chocolate Drizzle

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

Little intense vegan peanut cookies drenched in a dark chocolate drizzle. They make the perfect afternoon snack!

Author: Sasha Gill

Recipe type: Vegan

Serves: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup vegan butter, softened
• ½ cup cane sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract or ¼ tsp vanilla powder
• 1 cup salted crunchy peanut butter*
• ¼ cup soy milk
• 1 100g bar dark chocolate
• ¼ cup crushed, roasted peanuts

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or Silpat
2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set this aside for now.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the vegan butter, sugars, and vanilla until fluffy. Pour in the peanut butter and soy milk, and stir it in well.
4. Add ½ of the dry mixture and mix this in completely. Next, add the remaining flour mixture and stir until completely combined
5. If you prefer your cookies to be small and thick, chill the dough in the fridge for about 30 min. If you like your cookies thinner and are okay if they spread in the oven, you can skip this step.
6. Roll out small dough balls (about 2 tablespoons of dough) and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Use a fork to cross-hatch them, pressing down very slightly as you don’t want them to be too thin before baking.
7. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until golden and fragrant. Let them cool completely before handling them, as they are quite soft when just out of the oven.
8. Meanwhile, microwave the chocolate in a bowl in 30-second intervals until melted.
9. When the cookies are cool, dip an edge in the chocolate, and drizzle more over the top. Sprinkle with crushed peanuts before the chocolate sets.
10. Enjoy!

Notes

*If your peanut butter is quite thick, microwave it or heat it up so it's pourable and easier to stir into the batter

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