Three-Ingredient Peanut-Butter Cookies
I’m usually suspicious of recipes with click-bait titles like this one. “Simple” and “easy” and “N-ingredient” baked goods have been around longer than click-bait itself, masquerading as genuine homemade desserts in my grandmother’s cookbooks and on Betty Crocker’s website today. Consisting of ingredients as authentically American as cake mix + pudding + oreos + jello + whipped cream, these recipes seem like they’d be as shockingly sweet as they are simple.
The ingredients for these cookies, on the other hand, are as basic as the list itself: peanut butter, brown sugar, and eggs. And boy, are they good. They make peanut butter seem light and airy, with a texture like meringues. They’re perfect for spontaneous dorm cooking, which hardly ever has a full pantry of baking supplies to work with.
**Three-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies**
Adapted from Smitten KitchenMakes about 30 cookies
**Ingredients**
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar2 eggs1 3/4 cups creamy peanut butter (equivalent to one 15-16 oz jar) And if you’re feeling fancy-schmancy, you can take these cookies from dourmet to gourmet with:1/2 tsp. vanilla extractcoarse-grained sea salt, to finish
**Method**
Beat the light brown sugar and eggs together with a fork in a medium bowl. Whip it until you get some serious bubbles, because since these cookies don’t have baking soda or powder, this is where they get their rise. Mix in the peanut butter (and if desired, vanilla) until completely smooth. Freeze the dough for 10 minutes or so - this makes the cookies easier to shape. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 F. Once the dough is firm enough, use a spoon and your hands to form cherry-sized balls and set them on a greased pan. For the best cookie height, freeze the pan for another 10 minutes before baking. Sprinkle with salt, if desired, and then bake for 14-15 minutes, until you can see some browning on the tops. They will be soft right out of the oven, so let rest for a few minutes before transferring to a plate. As Deb notes, these are best when cool, so “the different textures (crisp outside, soft inside) can set up.”
