Award Winning Cookies

I try not to post recipes from the same category close together.  However, I couldn't let National Peanut Butter Cookie Day, June 12, pass without sharing an award winning recipe for peanut butter cookies.


Just about everyone has a recipe for peanut butter cookies.  Most recipes use some combination of these ingredients:

The ingredients pictured above are what I used when I made peanut butter cookies using my mother's recipe.  They were good, but time consuming.


A dozen years ago, someone gave me a recipe for peanut butter cookies that uses these ingredients:

That's right, the recipe only uses three ingredients.  I was skeptical the cookies would be any good, but I filed the recipe anyway in my untried recipe box, never expecting to actually make them.


A couple of years later, I was asked to make eight dozen peanut butter cookies for the Kairos prison ministry.  I didn't have a lot of time so I decided to give the three ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe a try.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, not only was the recipe good, it was better than my mother's recipe.  The recipe doesn't make a lot of cookies, but it's easy to double or triple if you need more cookies.


Combine the peanut butter, sugar and egg in a mixing bowl.  Refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes so it's easier to handle.  Shape the dough into balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet.  Make crisscross marks, pressing down on the dough with a fork in one direction and then in the other direction.  Crisscross marks, like jam on linzer cookies or cinnamon sugar on snickerdoodles, immediately identify the cookie as peanut butter. This is helpful, especially for anyone that is allergic to nuts.

Put the cookie sheet in the oven and bake the cookies 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cookies cool on the pan for one minute.  If you remove the cookies from the pan as soon as they come out of the oven, the cookies will crumble.  After one minute, the cookies are firm enough to transfer to a wire rack to cool.


If you're still skeptical, here's proof these are award winning cookies.  You know I love to cook, but what you don't know is I'm a competitive person. For a number of years, I entered culinary competitions at a regional fair held in my city.  The ribbons pictured below are the ones I have won in the peanut butter cookie category using this recipe.

There are variations of this recipe that include other ingredients, such as baking soda, salt and vanilla.  I made a batch for the fair one year adding a teaspoon of vanilla.  The consistency wasn't as smooth, the vanilla didn't improve the taste and the cookies didn't win a ribbon that year.


The cookies are easy to prepare, melt in your mouth and, unlike traditional peanut butter cookies, are gluten free.  Even if you don't enter these in a cooking contest, you're sure to win accolades from whoever is lucky enough to receive the cookies.

Three Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

28 Cookies

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Refrigerate 20 minutes so the dough is easier to handle.  Roll dough into 1-inch balls.  Place on ungreased baking sheet.  Press down with a fork to make crisscross marks.  Bake at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes.  Let cookies cool on the pan for 1 minute before removing to wire rack.

© Margaret's Morsels