A Splurge: 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies

In our town, there is a push for more small businesses in downtown – one of the new small storefronts going in is a cookie store. Nothing feels more gloriously child-like than the idea of a store just for cookies and other baked goods – and sometimes we need a child-like wonder for the world, even if it only lasts until the cookie is finished.

One evening this past week, we’d finished our veggie-heavy dinner and I could tell that Husband would eat more if it was available, but there weren’t even leftovers! So I pulled out three simple ingredients: 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of creamy peanut butter, and 1 egg. I mixed them all together, preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and dropped the wads of what just looked like peanut butter onto a greased cookie sheet. After 8 minutes in the oven, they had turned from wads of peanut butter into cookies – warm and crisp on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside.

I was happy with the recipe because it made enough cookies for a couple of days to have a cookie after a meal, but not enough to have cookies lingering around the house for days afterward, taunting me with their deliciousness. While the preparation is so short and fast that it fits into my crazy life pretty perfectly, it reminds me of more leisurely cookie-making experiences with my mom and sister when we were small, when I first realized that something admittedly yummy (cookie dough) could transform into something totally different after a stay in the oven. I think I will make these peanut butter beauties when I need a quick dessert for a peanut-friendly crowd, but I won’t trade the longer, more ingredient version when it comes to making holiday memories; it’s just too sweet and totally worth the time.