Easy Peanut Butter Breakfast Biscuits

Can I be one of those frustrating recipe bloggers for a second and ramble on about how I "created" this recipe? Otherwise, how will you ever know the story behind how these cookies eventually became my running-day breakfast staple?

I am still doing intermittent fasting, which means I'm eating breakfast around noon. Because the sun sets at 4:30 these days, I've been running in the mid-afternoon; one of the biggest challenges that's come up has been my digestion. If I eat a full meal at noon, I'm still much too full to run by two or even 3pm. Even a small bowl of oatmeal seems to keep me full too long.

A couple weeks ago, when I attempted to stave off some boredom (yes, I'm still in the I'm-bored-let's-bake stage of lockdown) by baking peanut butter cookies, I didn't have this problem in mind, but the cookies became the solution. I originally followed a recipe I'd found online, and they came out as sweet as you'd imagine a peanut butter cookie would be. That batch resulted in huge, super sweet, and incredibly filling cookies.

I'm a child with a ferocious sweet tooth, so I ate these cookies for breakfast and soon discovered they were exactly the thing I'd been needing to solve my too-full-to-run conundrum.

Still, I wasn't happy with how sugary that batch was. It called for a whole cup of white sugar (I split it 50-50 brown and white) and produced a not-exactly-balanced breakfast food, so I adjusted the recipe. By cutting the sugar in half, these "cookies" definitely took on a more biscuit-like flavor.

I hate to call these cookies because they're not exactly sweet, and their texture is denser and a bit drier than a typical soft cookie. It's all semantics, really. My recipe is below.

*Edit: After publishing this post, I tried subbing PB powder for the flour in this recipe and it was a huge improvement in texture and taste. If you have powdered peanut butter in your pantry, try this!

Instructions:

‣Pre-heat your oven to 350°F degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

‣Beat the egg and sugar together until fully combined. Add half the peanut butter and stir to combine, then add the other half. If you're using vanilla and salt, add it in and stir. 

Ignore that sprinkling of white sugar in the mix. It's not necessary.

‣At this time, your batter will be shiny and sticky; really, it will look like thick peanut butter. 

‣Sprinkle in a little flour and mix; you want the dough to be a little less sticky but still stretchy. I recommend adding a little to start and then more if necessary. You really only need a small amount of flour. 

‣Plop your dough onto a baking tray. These biscuits don't spread much, so pat them down a bit into the desired shape/size. I think mine were about 2 tablespoons of dough about two inches apart on the tray and got eight cookies.

‣Bake for 10-13 mins depending on size and desired texture. You'll know they're ready when they begin to slightly brown at the bottom. A toothpick will come out mostly clean. Overbaking these cookies results in a dry texture, but they still taste great with tea or coffee.

They'll feel dry to the touch but still soft. Let them cool for a few minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack. They'll harden as they continue to cool.

These bad boys are super filling but surprisingly not extremely dense. They come in at around 250 calories/9g of protein per cookie and sustain me for an easy run (or a couple hours hiking).

I like to nuke them in the microwave for about 8 seconds before eating. If you try them, let me know what you think!

ABK