Flourless Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies
These cookies got me thinking about all the different ways that I enjoy peanut butter and jelly. You know I love a list… so here goes.
I love peanut butter and jelly:
on white bread with the crust cut off.
rolled up in a warm flour tortilla.
on a toasted bagel, excluding the dreaded onion bagel.
on a spoon.
at midnight.
at lunch from a plastic bag.
with a Capri Sun.
after a date.
after a breakup.
with a banana.
without a stinkin’ banana.
on Wednesday.
every Wednesday.
from now.
until forever.
amen.
I could go on. and on and. on. Really… let’s cut to the cookie.
These flourless peanut butter cookies are my go-to cookie recipe. There are only four ingredients. This recipe is heroic. They’re super simple, crisp little cookies. Make a little indentation in the center of these cookies, add your favorite jam, bake em up… you’ve got peanut butter and jelly cookies.
It’s not rocket science. It is super yumtown.
Flourless Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies
adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook
makes about 32 small cookies
1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
about 1/4 cup any fruit preserves you fancy
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet with butter and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. The dough will be crumbly. Roll into teaspoon sized balls and make a small indentation in the center of the dough ball with your pointer finger. Fill the depression with fruit preserves. Bake for 12 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for two minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
142 Comments Add A Comment
Thanks so much for posting this recipe!! It came just in time for the weekend spent with my brother (who has a gluten allergy). They were an absolute hit! And my dad couldn’t stop eating them!! Luckily it made enough to make everyone happy. :) Thanks again!
Hi,
I found that the fruit preserves bubbled out and over the edges of the cookies. they ended up having more of a jam “glaze”. I would put the fruit preserves in after baking the cookies next time. Also, make sure the indentation is small or the cookies will be too delicate to stay together after they are cooked.
Taste good though!
These are delicious! Even though mine spread out to the degree that I had a baking sheet full of peanut butter … well, a peanut butter sheet really. But not to worry, I just separated the cookies again once they were done.
By the way: they taste totally phenomenal with chocolate and caramel in the center instead of the jelly/jam. If you want to cheat (not that I’d ever do that. Nope. I just heard that other people do. Cheaters!) just cut Rolos into quarters and stick a quarter Rolo into each indentation. YUM!
A coworker made these amazing PBJ cookies for an at-work baby shower and they are absolutely delicious! I will be baking them with my 3-year-old daughter for our Fourth of July celebration. PBJ (cookies) all the way!
Well, I didn’t have a cookie sheet (I know, I know, what the heck?!) but just had to try these. So I scooped the mixture into a mini-muffin pan and went from there. They’re still in the oven, smell delicious, are a bit overflow-y, but look good so far!
I just made these, telling myself it would be a “healthy” snack (since there was no flour or butter.) Have you tried reducing the sugar or substituting honey or agave? I’m wondering how they might turn out, since the PB is naturally sweet.
I substituted a cup of date paste (smashed up date fruits) for the sugar. This helped the cookies hold their shape instead of melting into a peanut butter sheet. It provided fiber (oh yay.) and a pretty good flavor too. Um, I also substituted flaxmeal and water for the egg, yielding the uberhealthy cooky of your dreams. No seriously. They tasted great. I filled them with a tiny bit of blueberry jel-jam and it didn’t bubble over or anything. These were a real hit amongst my hippie/alternative-food-lifestyle co-workers who demanded the recipe and a cooking lesson as a result. THank YOU!
I forgot that I also added 1/3 cup of soy grits.
Hi,
I made these biscuits today. They turned out really soft. Would that be because I added more sugar than the recipe required? Or would it be that the egg I used was too big?
Anyhow, they didn’t turn out crunchy at all.
I will be trying these this weekend as I’m sensitive to gluten, it will be a nice easy holiday treat!
Janet: I haven’t tried it yet for this recipe, but I recently made a muffin recipe where I substituted 1 cup sugar for 1/2 cup date sugar and 1/2 cup sucanat and it worked fine, just a bit less sweet than the sugar would have been. I’ll let you know how it comes out with this recipe.
Aleta, thanks for the idea!
This recipe is RIDICULOUS. How can something so easy come out so yummy? I’ve made them three times since posted this…obviously it’s my go to recipe too. Thanks!
These look soooo yummy but is there something I can do without having to use the egg. M daughter is allergic to eggs and I was thinking of subbing a “flax egg” to the mix what do you think?
When you say natural peanut butter, is Laura Scudder’s ok to use?
Can’t wait to make them.
Ok, I managed to FAIL on these simple cookies (I know, I know, I don’t know how that’s possible). I made them last night and the jelly went everywhere except on the cookies. They ended up being glazed pb cookies. They were tasty, just not visually appealing :(
Looks delish. Clearly more fun to eat than the sandwich variety [:
Joy– do you think this recipe would work well if you substituted Nutella for the jelly? I know you’d have to augment the recipe some, namely putting the Nutella part way through the baking time… just wondering what you think!
Thanks for the yummy inspiration each week!
thank you i need something to make for my friends brthday and i will try it
These turned out AWESOME for me! I riffed off your other flourless pb cookie recipes and substituted the cup of sugar with half a cup of sugar and half a cup of lightly packed brown sugar, added a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, and then threw in two big heaping ladlefuls of chocolate–a big chocolate chunk that I chopped up, threw in the food processor, and then sifted all the powder out of. Re: the jelly-everywhere problem someone had, I just made deeper dents in my doughballs, like little volcanoes, and tucked the jam in (I used apricot-raspberry, mmmm Bonne Maman). The cookies turned out much darker, with jelly centers kind of like Jammy Dodgers, and they were a huuuuge hit! So thank you so much, Joy! I love your blog, it inspires me to keep baking.
hi joy,
just made these last night and they were deeeeeeeeeelish!
just one question – i was trying to find the original recipe in the gourmet cookbook and i couldn’t find it (i tried the cookie book as well). can you link to the actual title of the book?
thanks!
maya
I made these last night while not feeling well… let’s just say that they made me feel better. Mine didn’t turn out nearly as pretty as yours, but damn did they taste good. I think one trick to making them pretty and not having them glob is to actually use preserves and NOT jam. The more “preserve” bit I put in the cookie, the prettier they turned out.
These cookies are super easy! I didn’t read the recipe correct at first and made indentations with a spoon which made the cookies too large and flat, so the jam (I also put too much jam in them, and made the cookies too big), spilled out of the cookies and made them hard to lift from the pan. So all of this was my fault. The recipe is great and follow it exactly. The ones I did make indentations with my finger and made them smaller in size came out beautifully. Took no time to cook, and DELICIOUS!! I have eaten so many at this point that I am embarrassed.
Thanks for such a great easy recipe!! I will make these for my secondary students in Spain to give them a little taste of America!
I forgot to mention I made the cookies with a “chocolate strawberry mermelade” (I’m in Spain) and it was AMAZING…if anyone can find something similar, go for it!
This recipe is yummy! I did add a teaspoon of vanilla, about 2 tablespoons of flour (it helped with the consistency, and we don’t have any gluten issues), cut the sugar to 1/2 cup, and they tasted great. I used a disher for portioning, and strawberry preserves, and baked them closer to 20 minutes. There was no running—they stayed a nice fluffy/sandy texture.