PBJ thumbprint cookies

Since I was experimenting with this recipe, I scaled it down some. Instead of making the usual two or three dozen cookies, this recipe should yield about 18 cookies. Even though this was only my first attempt at making okara-peanut-butter cookies, I think they came out wonderfully!



Preheat an oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a bowl, combine
2 1/2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly and then set aside.

In a blender, combine
1 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup okara
3/4 cup agave nectar
2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
2 Tablespoons soymilk

Blend liquid ingredients until thoroughly mixed and creamy. Mixture will be very stiff. Scrape out of blender and add to dry ingredients.

Incorporate dry ingredients into the peanut-butter mixture. The dough will be insanely stiff. So stiff, that you might want to use an electric mixer. (In that case, you'll probably want to combine the liquid ingredients with the mixer, rather than in a blender.)

Once the batter is well mixed, place golf-ball-sized balls of dough onto a baking sheet sprayed with oil. Twelve balls of dough should be arranged evenly on one baking sheet, spaced about an inch apart. Gently flatten each ball of dough a bit, and then make an indentation in each one with your finger.

Using a 1/2 teaspoon, place a dollop of
strawberry preserves
into the indentation of each cookie, creating a little mound of fruit preserves in the middle of each cookie.


Pictured above: This was my first batch of cookies as I was readying them for the oven. I did not flatten this batch prior to baking. They didn't spread out much while cooking, so for my second batch I flattened the cookies down a bit before baking.

Bake for 22 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Verdict: This is a very chewy and dense cookie, and it might not be sweet enough for some people. I, however, thought they were great! Even though I like the end result, in the future I might experiment with adding more liquid, because the dough was irritatingly stiff and annoying to work with.