World-Changing Agave-Sweetened Peanut-Butter Chocolate-Chip Cookies
About a year and a half ago I gave up refined sugar (for the most part).
On the way home from a bridal shower where I’d come alive from an anti-social stupor after snarfing a large piece of the shower cake, Leigh said to me, “maybe we should give up the refined sugar for a while.”
Like the addict I was I lost it. “You can’t do that! There’s sugar in everything! It’s just not possible.”
After about 5 minutes of rationalizing, I heard myself and realized I had a problem. The two of us laughed hard and decided maybe we should give up the sugar for a while. (By the way, refined sugar isn’t in EVERYTHING.)
Being the pastry freak that I am, this was a challenge. The hardest part was dessert after dinner. As my grandfather always says, “you must have a little gliko (Greek for ‘sweet’) after every meal!” So, I set to work researching the best, most natural, least processed sugar-substitute that I could use in baking, and started searching the internet for recipes. I settled on agave and found a great peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe that I modified to use agave instead of a fruit-sweetener.
These cookies keep me sane. I make them practically all the time so that there have been very few days in the last year when these cookies haven’t been in the house. When I bring them to work, arguments can break out if I don’t bring one for everyone. I know at least one other person who is nearly as fanatical as I am about making these cookies. She uses these to control her diabetes.  Don’t worry though, even with the whole-wheat flower and nut butter, there’s nothing medicinal about how these cookies taste. The might be the best thing ever. I’m just saying.
I consider them open-source, so let me know if you make improvements on the recipe.
Enjoy!
No-Sugar Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip Cookies:
– 1 cup natural style nut butter. I use unsalted peanut but you could use salted if you like better (you can also use almond)
– put 2 tablespoons of water in a 2/3 cup measure. Add agave syrup to fill the 2/3 measure (I prefer dark, but light works too)
– 1 generous tsp vanilla
– 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (For wheat-free, sub barley flower, or oat. For gluten-free sub quinoa flour.)
– 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
– 1/2 tsp salt
– About 3/4 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips – or dark chocolate chips if you can’t find grain sweetened
Oven to 350 degrees, parchment paper on two cookie sheets (or butter them, or use nothing at all). Mix wet ingredients in mixer, add dry ingredients, beat until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Make balls with heaping Tbsp of dough, then squish with a wet fork to get the traditional pattern. I use all the dough to make 12 cookies. I bake Exactly 10 minutes if I want them chewy. (These are easy to overcook due to their color – so watch closely, and take out when they are just barely browning on top. Maybe start with 8 mins and check the underside of one cookie, just to be safe. For barley, oat or quinoa, you might want to bake longer.)
Enjoy!
27 comments
Hmmmm.. I dont know that I could give up sugar. I do however like raw sugar, organic, and agave.
Cookies look delish! Maybe I will make them for the boys!
~Heather
Howdy!
I gave up refined sugars quite a few years ago and have been using agave nectar ever since. You might be interested in my blog, Altered Plates, which focuses on baking and cooking with agave nectar instead of other sweeteners. Good luck in your journey. It gets better.
Your pal,
Deb
Most of all I love the blue icing in your lovely white teeth!
i swear these are the best cookies eva in the history of the world…i’m just saying.
WOW!!! I AM PRE DIABETIC.AND I AM SCARED I WILL BECOME DIABETIC. I WOULD LOVE TO TRY YOUR RECIPE! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING OUT THE TIME TO PUT YOUR RECIPE ON THE ENTERNET!!!!!! =0)
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Made these cookies today, minus the choco chips. I was in the mood for real peanut-nutty – so I added some chopped peanuts – THESE ARE FABULOUS!!! Thanks for sharing the recipe! Best wishes in your adventures! Keep the recipes coming!!! =- )
Missing you so I’m going to make cookies with the ingredients you left at my house.
Super sweet. But now I miss you, AND I’m jealous. And also a little bit hungry…
Omigosh these cookies are insane amazing! this recipe is now my GO TO cookie recipe!
I love these. Thanks 🙂
Ummmmm, I just made these and they are freaking AWESOME!! I baked them in a pan instead of cookies– so they are bars. But they are insane. Thanks for sharing 🙂
These cookies are absolutely awesome – thank you for sharing the recipe online! And just to let you know, I live in the south of France and have made these cookies for friends and family here (who have never heard of anything as insane as making cookies from peanut butter, or have never even heard of peanut butter, for that matter!) and they all want the recipe. So these cookies might actually prove to be world-changing indeed…
I just made these for friends, and they were wonderful. The texture is better than any peanut butter cookie recipe I’ve tried, and better than most vegan cookies of any flavor. Thank you for sharing it.
I made these cookies today and they are delicious. I am on a very strict low GI diet and have given up nearly every sweet. How nice to know there are cookies I can eat! Thanks. Do you have any other baking recipes that use agave/whole wheat flour? So far the cookbooks I’ve tried have been lame. I would love any other recipes you’d like to share.
WOWZA! I just made these cookies using your recipe and they are fantastic! Thank you for sharing the recipe!!!
I added 1/3 cup of oats and 2/3 ww flour and a handful of craisins. Yummy!
AMAZING! I just made these cookies with chunky peanut butter and quinoa flour. They are so good! I’m going to post a link to these from my website. Thanks!!
My daughter and I just made these cookies for the second time and they are absolutely fabulous! My favorite part is that it’s totally fine for my 2 year old to hover over the bowl and taste the dough, which she does a lot, since there are no eggs in this recipe. Thanks for sharing this recipe. My daughter will continue to request these and it’s nice that I can feel really good about having these around the house as a healthy and incredibly tasty treat!
I love this recipe, I use honey instead of agave and whole grain wheat flour and only 1/2 a cup on chocolate chips, but it is still fabulous
These were amazeballs. I only had about 1/2 cup of almond butter, so I also added about 1/2 cup of earth balance. Deeeelicious! Thanks for this recipe!
Thanks for this recipe! Made it with homemade chocolate chips (they had a bit of sugar, but you can use stevia too). Delciousities!!
Mmm . Made these with spelt flour as didn’t have quinoa so not strictly wheat free. Used cocoa instead of choc chips. They turned out as gorgeous mini choc cakes that we sandwiched fruit spread inside – delicious!