A client contacted me to see if I could customize a peanut butter cookie recipe that she had. My client is on a specialized diet and she needed the recipe to meet the specifications of her diet. Currently she tries to eat as little sugar as possible but would love to still be able to have the occasional treat. She also can only have whole wheat flour. Ideally she should skip peanuts and eat almonds, but one of her family members is allergic to almond so she can’t do that. Since she cannot have almonds in her house, I stuck to the peanut butter but reduced the amount that the recipe originally called for. The recipe can be adjusted from 1/2 cup of peanut butter up to 1 cup to give the cookies a more intense peanut flavor. More peanut butter would also mask more of the whole wheat flavor, if you or your kids are not big fans of that flavor. I added plain yogurt to the recipe since that is something that is especially good for my client. The yogurt helps to add moisture to the whole wheat cookies and because of the addition of the yogurt, there is no need for eggs in the recipe. To replace the sugar in the recipe, I chose to use stevia. Stevia is a natural plant sweetener that comes from the leaves of the stevia plant. It is a zero-calorie natural sweetener that is sweeter tasting than regular sugar so you don’t need to use as much. The end result is a tasty peanut butter whole wheat cookie that is nearly sugar free.
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Customized Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 c. natural smooth peanut butter with no added sugar or oil
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 c. plain, low-fat yogurt
1/3 c. stevia natural sweetener
1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Cream together the peanut butter, melted butter, yogurt and stevia.
Add the whole wheat flour and baking powder; mix until just combined.
Scoop out a teaspoonful of cookie dough and pat into a ball. The dough will be moist so just lightly pat it into balls. Place the balls on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Use a fork to make the traditional crisscross design on top of the cookies.
Bake in a preheat oven at 350°F for 8 minutes. After cooking, let the cookies cool slightly for 1 minute on the cookie sheets. Then remove the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
Makes 36 cookies.
Nutrition Information per cookie:
61 Calories
4 g. fat
2 g. saturated fat
7 mg. cholesterol
61 mg. sodium
4 g. carbohydrates
0.5 g. fiber
0.5 g. sugar (from the lactose in the yogurt and a very small amount of naturally occurring sugar in the natural peanut butter)
0.2 g. stevia
2 g. protein