Healthy Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprint Cookies and Lazy Samoas

I am married to a man who loves cookies. While I could usually take it or leave it when it comes to dessert, Mark always needs to have something sweet after a meal. What's a health nut, who happens to LOVE to bake, to do about this situation? Create delicious cookies that will satisfy any sweet tooth without compromising good health!

Last weekend I made a batch of "Lazy Samoas" from the fabulous cookbook Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Samoas are Mark's favorite girl scout cookie and he really liked this version of them. I'm not a huge coconut person but Mark and his family love it so I can see making this again in the future for some sort of holiday gathering. The cookies are called lazy because they skip the step of making a shortbread cookie with coconut topping and just make the cookie itself with shredded coconut mixed in and then you dip the bottom of the cookies in chocolate and drizzle the tops as well.

This cookbook is just too great, there are so many recipes I can't wait to try out, such as :Blueberry Spice Crumb Bars, "Sell Your Soul" Pumpkin Cookies, Cherry Almond Cookies, Peanut Apple Pretzel Drops(!!!), Spiced Sweet Potato Blondies....I could go on and on. I would challenge anyone who is doubtful about how good baked goods can be without dairy or eggs to try one of these recipes. Your mouth and heart will thank you :)

Here is the most important part of this post: Peanut Butter + Blackberry Jam= seriously delicious cookie. Yes, I love peanut butter more than pretty much any food. Its a little embarrassing. I mean, come on, I consider myself to be a foodie. Grocery shopping is one of my favorite activities, I love researching new restaurants to try out, I read cookbooks like they are novels and my ideal job would be to write for Food and Wine Magazine or some sort of travel/food publication. Yet, I adore the same food eaten by picky five year olds across America. Le sigh.

In my defense my enthusiasm for nut butters does not end with the mere peanut, oh no. In my pantry right now sits a gastronomical variety of jars including chocolate hazelnut, maple almond butter, vanilla flax almond butter, smooth almond butter, crunchy almond butter, as well as agave peanut butter, dark chocolate peanut butter, cinnamon raisin peanut butter and natural crunchy peanut butter. This may seem excessive but you never know what mood will strike you and you must be prepared. Granny smith apple with almond butter? Frozen banana slices with chocolate hazelnut? Oatmeal with cinnamon raisin peanut butter? These are everyday eats for me. Sometimes all three of these variations in a day.

I justify this by telling myself that its the healthy kind of fat and since I'm mostly vegetarian, I need the protein. Really though, I don't need to justify it. I love it and I would usually rather eat peanut butter out of the jar than another kind of dessert. Hey, makes my birthday easy! Next year mark can just stick a candle in a jar of Peanut Butter and Co's Dark Chocolate Dreams and I'll be a happy girl!

However, my ambivalence about dessert ends when the dessert includes that magic ingredient. Last night I wanted to make cookies and I wanted them to be peanut butter and I wanted them married to their classic companion, jelly. Thus, PB & J Thumbprints were born. The peanut butter cookie itself is loosely adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar's recipe for agave peanut butter cookies, I just changed up some of the ingredients and changed the cookie from a classic cross-hatched pb cookie to a thumbprint.

I used blackberry jam for the filling but grape, strawberry, anything you would put on a PB&J would be great. Crofter's organic spreads are our favorite brand of jam. Mark has a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich for a pre-bedtime snack almost every night. Thank goodness I have a helper to plow through that vast pb collection!

Here's my recipe:

1/2 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup brown rice syrup (or more agave, maple syrup or honey)
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
2/3 cup creamy or creamy salted peanut butter
2 tablespoons almond milk
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 and 1/2 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of jam or jelly (or even melted chocolate!) of your choice

Preheat oven to 325. Line two baking sheets with wax paper.
In a large bowl, wisk together agave, brown rice syrup, oil, peanut butter, milk, falx seeds, and both extrats until very smooth. Sift in the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix to form a soft dough.
Use your hands to roll about a tablespoon of  dough at a time into balls and place them on the baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for about 9 minutes or until puffy.
While cookies are baking, put the jam into a small saucepan over low heat to soften.
Take cookies out of the oven. Use either the back of a small spoon, a melon baller, or of course your thumb if you can handle the heat, to make and indention in each cookie. Use a spoon to fill the indentions with the jam.
Put the cookies back in the oven for 6-7 minutes more, check to make sure they aren't getting to brown around the edges.
Take cookies out of oven and let cool on baking sheets for five minutes before moving to wire racks to cool completely.

This recipe made a lot, around two dozen or a little more. So, I took some to school to share with friends and they were very well received! Mark says he thinks they are very good, but he still prefers the samoas. To each their own I suppose! The more peanut butter for me!