Peanut Butter Cookies from Dessert Cooking for Two

It can be difficult to bake for just two people. If you make a cake, it feels like you have obligated yourself to each eat half that cake! I was poking around the cookbook section of NetGalley and encountered Dessert Cooking for Two: 115 Perfectly Portioned Sweets for Every Occasion by Robin Donovan, so I requested it for review. I'm not sure why the author decided to call it "dessert cooking" rather than baking but what you'll find inside are baked goods galore. I went with a simple recipe - peanut butter cookies. The recipe makes just six small cookies, enough for each person to have three, unless one of those people dumps three of them on the floor while taking their picture. (If said cookies in said picture appear cracked or otherwise damaged, this may have occurred and should not be connected to a flaw in the recipe but rather the baker.)

This recipe is a good one to have on hand because it is made of items usually found in your pantry, can be easily adapted to be lower sugar (see my notes at the end,) and comes together and bakes quickly.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
(from Dessert Cooking for Two)

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/3 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat the oven and prepare the baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the ingredients. In a medium bowl, stir together the peanut butter and sugar until creamy and well combined. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and baking soda and stir until smooth.
3. Form the cookies. Form the dough into six even balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet, leaving at least 2 inches of space in between each ball. Using the tines of a fork, press the balls and create the classic crisscross pattern.
4. Bake the cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are set. Let the cookies cool on the sheet. 

 Notes from JennyBakes: 

 In the interest of baking something my husband would actually eat, I decided to finally experiment with the Swerve sugar substitute I had bought at Fresh Market. I bought the powdered sugar kind, and just decided it would do well enough. I used the same amount but I think my dough was a little more dry than the recipe would have been otherwise.

Ten minutes was at least 1 minute too long, but this might also relate to my Swerve experiment.

Other recipes I marked to try in this cookbook:

• Whipped Lemon Ricotta Mousse
• Frozen Raspberry Hot Chocolate
• (those super cute)Ice Cream Sandwiches

Thanks to the publisher for approving my request to look through this cookbook ahead of time. It comes out August 13, 2019.