Maple Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cookies

Last month, I was excited to find out that I had won some Better Butter products on my friend Elina's blog - Healthy and Sane.  If you haven't checked out Elina's blog, you totally should.  She writes a very personal blog detailing her successes and struggles with balancing a healthy lifestyle with her love for good food.  I think her blog touches on subjects that most of us can relate to and I'm always so appreciative of her honesty.

As I learned from Elina's blog, the founder and owner of Better Butter started the company because she loved peanut butter but was frustrated at how caloric it was.  She started to experiment to create a healthier alternative to peanut butter.  From Elina's giveaway, I received a variety pack along with a full size jar of my choice.  Since I adore anything pumpkin, I chose the Maple Pumpkin Better Butter.  I of course had to have a spoonful as soon as it arrived and I loved that this nutty butter had such strong flavors of maple syrup and pumpkin.  Even though it would be great to use for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I decided to try using the Maple Pumpkin Better Butter to make some peanut butter cookies!

Bret and I were originally going to go to party at the House of Blues on Saturday night but Bret wasn't feeling well so we decided to stay in.  I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to bake up some peanut butter cookies.  I did a quick search online and found this ridiculously simple and easy recipe.  This recipe only uses four ingredients:

• 1 cup of peanut butter (I replaced it with 1 cup of the Maple Pumpkin Better Butter)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar

I pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees.  And then I simply mixed all of the ingredients together.

The recipe said to roll out the cookie dough into balls but my cookie dough was way too wet.  I wasn't sure if it was the smoother consistency of the Better Butter or what but I decided to go with it anyway.  Instead, I carefully spooned a tablespoon of the wet dough onto two parchment-lined baking tray.

I put one tray in on the middle rack and baked it for ten minutes.  The cookies ended up being thin and flat instead of the thick chewy cookie that a peanut butter cookie usually resembles.  I took the first tray out to cool and put the second tray in the oven.  I noticed that the first sheet still seemed a little under-baked in the middle so when the second tray finished baking after ten minutes, I turned off the oven, kept the second sheet on the middle rack and put the first sheet on the bottom rack.  I let the cookies continue baking with the oven off for another ten minutes.

After I removed the cookies from the oven and they had fully cooled, I was ready to try one out.  These cookies were definitely pretty sweet.  I think it could have used less sugar than the recipe called for, especially with the sweetness of the maple syrup.  The cookies were thin but soft and I think they would made great cookies for ice cream sandwiches.  But for me, they are pretty great on their own with a glass of milk.

Do you like peanut butter?  What is your favorite way to eat/cook/bake with peanut butter?