Happy Valentine’s Day | Easy Peanut Butter Butterscotch Cookies

I’ve kind of always loved Valentine’s Day. Single or not, it just seemed like a good reminder to get a little cheesy and share some love. I wanted to do something a little special for my guy this year, but between training and work I didn’t have a ton of time. Cue the easiest cookies in the world.

Warning: If you’re not the type of person to eat peanut butter just straight out of the jar, this is not the cookie for you, my friend.

I came across Ovenly’s Peanut Butter cookie recipe through Food52’s Salted Peanut Butter Pie recipe. I clicked the link and bookmarked, then came across it again on Smitten Kitchen’s blog the very next day. I figured that was a sign. Everyone was raving about them in the comments. Plus, there are literally only 3 essential ingredients. Chances are you’ve already got them sitting around your kitchen right now.

Ingredients

• Eggs
• Light brown sugar (335g)
• Creamy Peanut Butter (450g)
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• Course Sea Salt (optional)
• Butterscotch chips (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F . Whisk together eggs and brown sugar.

Fold in peanut butter, vanilla extract, and your toppings of choice. I’ve been craving butterscotch cookies so I tossed in plenty of chips into the dough.

Freeze dough, then scoop cookies in desired size/shape onto a baking pan. Freeze again for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle each with a little bit of sea salt and pop those babies in!

They should take anywhere between 14 – 18 minutes to finish depending on how chilled the dough is. Just keep an eye on the color and pull them out when they’re golden. They don’t flatten too much, so don’t wait for that!

The freezing is an important step! This helps the cookies keep their bite-sized ball shape and finish with that crispy on the outside, dough-y in the middle texture that I love.

I didn’t have a little scooper so my cookies were more mismatched and oddly shaped, but honestly still wonderful. Weird-looking sweets is part of the charm in baking from scratch anyway, right?

I wish I had nicer photos to share, but I baked these in the wee hours of the night and didn’t stop much to capture the steps. Whoops! They’re delicious, though. D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! My peanut-butter loving valentine ate ten for dinner. If I weren’t on a diet, I absolutely would have too.

It’s such a simple recipe, I feel like you could really go crazy with it. I have a hunch they’d make fantastic cookie sandwiches with some jam in between. PB&J, anyone?

I don’t really bake much, but this was so much fun. What are your favorite baking recipes? I’d love to try them out!