So those of you that know me well know that I don’t bake; it’s just not in my wheelhouse. I can do cheesecake and pies and that’s pretty much where my baking talents end… which of course means that I really want to learn how to bake. I started working on it last year with this post on some iconic holiday cookies that are a royal pain to make. This year I decided to go with something slightly less challenging in the interest of my sanity and for the safety of those around me… especially since I took over a great friend’s kitchen (and washing machine) while making these.

Since I am not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, this recipe is not one of mine. This recipe for Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies is courtesy of the lovely Clare Robinson. I wanted to try them because they were topped with salt (aka. my favorite food group). I thought they would be pretty good, but be a pretty standard peanut butter cookie. I was wrong. The comment I got on these was they were “the best peanut butter cookie ever”. While that may be an overstatement, they are pretty dang good.

Ingredients

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Coarse sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and place racks in the upper and lower third of the oven.

In a medium bowl, mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until well combined. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Flatten the mounds with the tines of a fork, making a crosshatch pattern on the cookies. The dough is pretty sticky at this point; if the dough sticks to the fork, spray it with cookie spray. Sprinkle coarse salt on top of the cookies.

Bake until golden around edges, about 10 minutes, switching the position of the pans halfway thorough baking. Transfer to racks to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough.