INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

• In a medium bowl, stir together peanut butter and maple syrup with a spatula. At first, your batter will be very liquidy, but as you continue to mix the maple syrup into the peanut butter you will see your batter thicken and resemble cookie dough. Your dough will not be as thick and solid as typical cookie dough but it should be firm enough for you to scoop up with your cookie scoop and shape with your hands. See the notes section about potentially making the cookies sweeter.

• Scoop cookie dough, roll into a ball, and place onto a prepared baking sheet, spaced 2 inches apart. Using the palm of your hand, flatten cookie dough into a round disk. Make a criss-cross pattern on the surface of each cookie using a fork.

• Bake cookies for about 8-12 minutes or until the surface of cookies look dry and cooked. Do not worry if the cookies still feel soft. They will firm up after they cool. Let cookies cool completely on the baking sheet to allow them to set. Do not attempt to remove cookies before they are cool because they will fall apart. Once cookies are cooled and set, they should easily come off your parchment paper or silicone mat. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

NOTES

• Just because they’re healthy doesn’t mean calorie-free… Take it easy on them =)

• These cookies are very “crumbly” - consider “bite-sized” to cut down on crumbs.

• Bake time for me was 8 minutes.

• This recipe will only work with natural peanut butter that only contains nuts and salt. It will not work with peanut butter processed with oils because the oils keep the peanut butter in its paste form and it won't form a dough the way the natural one will when it is mixed with the maple syrup.

• These cookies have only a little bit of sweetness. This was intentional was something low-sugar. Peanut butter is so flavorful that just having the cookies slightly sweetened works for me. However, if you wish for a sweeter cookie you can make them sweeter. After you mix in the maple syrup, taste your cookie dough. If you want more sweetness you can add 1-2 more tbsp of maple syrup. I do not recommend adding more than that because your dough will be too moist to work with.

• Adding 1-2 tbsp more maple syrup will make the dough a little harder to work with because it will be softer but you should still be able to shape it. Your cookies will also be a little darker in color and you may need to bake 1-2 minutes longer. (My cookies were done at 10 minutes for the original version and closer to 12 minutes when I added more syrup).