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Friday, August 17, 2012

Egg-free Sunbutter Cookies

Among the joys I lament Roo missing out on due to his allergies, a tray of peanut butter cookies cooling on the counter ranks near the top, right behind family vacation to Thailand.
It's not just the infatuating aroma of nutty goodness wafting through the fall leaves as he steps off the school bus or the crumbly hunger quelling first bite after swimming lessons, it's the process. I have such fond memories of hovering over a tray while my mom rolled neat balls, poised with my fork, ready to press in the telltale crisscross pattern that proclaims, stop what you're doing, there are homemade peanut butter cookies over here!
We've been using peanut butter substitutes for years on sandwiches, in sauces, on crackers, apples, and much more. To be fair we've all grown quite fond of Sunbutter as a worthy substitute. But, we've already lost eggs in our baking due to, you guessed it, Roo's allergies, and I get nervous when we start over-substituting. Up until now I've avoided making Sunbutter cookies all together for fear of their shortcomings without peanut butter or eggs.

Sometimes someone should shake me. I made these and maybe it's been too long since I tasted real peanut butter, but I could not tell the difference. I kid you not, these are the real deal.

Egg-Free Sunbutter Cookies
adapted from Food.com

1/2 cup sunflower butter (we use Sunbutter)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla
1 & 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup mini-chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the sunflower butter, both sugars, butter and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour, salt, baking powder and soda and mix again until combined. Stir in chocolate chips, if using.
2. With clean hands, roll the dough into balls, about 1/2-inch diameter. Place on a cookie sheet. Enlist your favorite child or children to gently mark each cookie with a fork in a crisscross pattern.
3. Bake 8-10 minutes until light golden brown. Allow tray to sit for a few minutes then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

8 comments:

  1. Hi! This message is from Rhodes Bake-n-Serv, manufacturers of frozen dough. We'd love to be able to contact you by email and send you some coupons so you can try out our dough. If you'd like to contact us, please email staciew@rhodesbread.com. Thanks!

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  2. These cookies were yummy! Thanks for sharing them with me :)

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  3. Going to try this, substituting palm oil shortening or coconut oil for the butter...hope I'm not "over-substituting"...perfect term coinage there! I worry about that all the time!

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    1. I know exactly what you mean on the over-subbing!! Story of my life :) Maybe reduce the amt of oil a bit so they'll hold their shape. Good luck and let me know how they turn out. I am curious to know.

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  4. They came out very nice! To make them dairy-free, I used half Spectrum palm oil shortening and half coconut oil instead of the butter. I would probably use all Spectrum next time for the butter, and a few drops of Lyle's Golden Syrup to get the "buttery" flavor.
    The Enjoy Life mini chips really made them perfect!

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    1. That's great! Thanks for sharing your milk-free subs and I'm so glad they worked out. We were dairy-free too when my son was younger and it can be so hard to get baked goods just right without butter OR eggs. Or nuts. I love Enjoy Life everything! Have you tried their soft brownie cookies?! Yum!

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  5. Our new favorites...and we made them gluten free too! Thanks so much! Yum!

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  6. No matter what anybody else says, the crisscross design is NOT necessarily a warning to individuals with peanut allergies to stay away from those cookies because as seen here, peanut butter is NOT the only seed butter there is, the cookies might actually be made with sunflower seed butter. Many recipes for seed butter cookies that are intended to made with a seed butter other than peanut butter (including recipes written by Sunbutter themselves) still instruct the cook to roll the dough into balls and press them down with the tines of a fork. So was that the real origin of the crisscross in peanut butter cookies? The original recipe, while it instructs the cook to do that, did not say why the advice is given.

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