Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are so easy and so delicious, I’m almost reluctant to share my secret!  Since the whole idea of this blog is beginners helping out beginners, though, I guess I’m willing to share just this once. 

The recipe only calls for six ingredients:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.  (Don’t skip this step.  Not only will is mess up your cookies, but it will also make clean-up into a bit of an ordeal.  Learn from my mistakes.  Wax paper is also not recommended.)

Next, combine the first five ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  If you’re super lazy like I am and don’t want to clean peanut butter out of your measuring cup, most normal-sized peanut butter jars are about 2 cups.  Also I normally love natural and/or organic peanut butter, but I don’t recommend it for this recipe.  Once you have everything mixed together, add your semi-sweet chocolate chips and combine.

Roll the batter into 1 inch balls and place them on your baking sheet.  These cookies do expand some while baking, so leave enough room for the cookie to end up around 3 inches in diameter with space in between.

Bake on the middle rack for 12 – 14 minutes.  The cookies should have expanded and just started to brown a little on the top when you pull them out.  Let them cool on the cookie sheet 5 – 10 minutes before carefully moving the cookies to wire cooling racks.  Because there is no flour in this recipe they are very delicate while warm, so be careful.

Let them cool on the wire racks for at least 15 more minutes before packing them up in an air-tight container.  Eat at least one while they’re warm (I always eat the ugliest one so no one sees it).

Happy baking!