Peanut Butter. Glorious Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies.

Always been a sucker for a good peanut butter cookie.  Never could turn one down. And who really eats only ONE cookie? Someone with iron-will that’s who.

After my recent horror of discovering that my favorite go-to “NutterButters” had High Fructose Corn Syrup in them, I let out a shriek.  I was in mourning. Nooooooo. But alas, it was true.

I began to get my industrious nerd on. Surely there was a great many options to rectify my plight.  And then I wondered. Knowing that I am a cookie pig, could I make it healthy? Could I eek out a couple of nutritional perks, so I would not feel so guilty as I grabbed for a second and third cookie?

After several hours of recon and batch tests, I found these cookies to be lower in calories than some of their counterpart recipes. These cookies had a wholesome peanut butter taste with nutritional extras and a slightly crumbly texture due to the removal of egg that usual serves as a binding agent for the cookie.

Never fear however, this is a soft and chewy peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe that is full of whole grains and fiber.  And lastly, since there is no raw egg, I felt especially encouraged to do one of my favorite practices: taste-test a spoonful of raw dough. So it was a win-win in my book.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup King Arthur white whole wheat flour

1 cup  rolled oats

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. fine grain sea salt

3/4 cup light brown organic sugar

1/3 cup unsalted KerryGold butter

1/3 cup creamy organic peanut butter

1/4 cup reduced fat buttermilk

1/3 semi-sweet Guittard chocolate chips

1/3 peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips

Directions

1. Step

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

2. Step

Whisk together first five ingredients (up to the salt) in a medium mixing bowl.

3. Step

In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar, butter, peanut butter, salt and buttermilk together. Stir in flour mixture until a soft dough forms. Add chips.

4. Step

Roll dough into walnut-shaped balls and place on prepared cookie sheets, 2 inches apart. Flatten gently with the back of a fork. Bake 10-12 minutes. Store cookies in an airtight container with a piece of white bread. The white bread keeps the cookies soft.

Makes 30 cookies.

Per cookie: 95 calories, 4 g fat, 6 g cholesterol, 13 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein, 1% Vitamin A, 0% Vitamin C, 1% calcium, 3% iron