As promised in my Feeding Toddlers article, here is the recipe for my Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies! Aren’t they cute? These babies are no-bake, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and oil-free. And yet, they’re mini PB & J sandwiches — like “Uncrustables” without the junk ingredients!
To keep these peanut butter & jelly cookies nutritious, and thus mommy-approved, I sweetened them with dates and used fruit-sweetened jelly rather than one of the sugar-filled versions.
Soaking dates before processing them helps them form a paste more easily.
Instead of using flour to create a dough, I used PB2, a powdered form of peanut butter, which is much lower in fat than regular peanut butter, but retains the peanut flavor. You should be able to find it in most grocery stores with the rest of the nut butters.
These peanut butter & jelly cookies are so simple to make, you can let your kids help! Just process the ingredients to form a dough, roll it out and use cookie cutters to make small circles (I used a 1.5-inch cutter), freeze them for a few minutes, then use the cookies make small sandwiches! I pressed a burlap textile into my dough to make the cookies a little fancier, but that step is totally unnecessary if you and your family are the only ones who will be eating these!
- 10 medjool dates, soaked in warm water about 20 mins, drained
- 1½ t. vanilla extract
- ¼ cup natural peanut butter
- ¼ t. sea salt
- ⅓ cup PB2, plus more for handling the dough
- 3-4 T. fruit-sweetened jelly
- In a food processor, combine the dates, vanilla, peanut butter, and salt until a fairly smooth paste forms.
- Add the PB2 and pulse to form a dough.
- Transfer dough to wax paper dusted in more PB2 and knead dough, adding more PB2 until dough is no longer sticky.
- Place dough in the freezer 30 mins to an hour, then roll it out to about ¼-inch thick and cut it into 24 1.5-inch circles. Return circles to freezer for a few minutes.
- Use cookies to form small sandwiches by adding a small dollop of jelly between two and pressing them together.
- Store cookies in an air-tight container in the fridge up to 2 weeks or in the freezer up to 2 months.
These peanut butter & jelly cookies are soft, rich, and so satisfying! They, along with my mini cinnamon rolls, would make excellent post-workout snacks because they’re so portable and contain natural sugars for replenishing glycogen stores in the muscles. They also contain some protein from the nut butters to help with muscle recovery.
I recommend keeping these cookies in the freezer and putting one or two in your child’s lunchbox for a nutritious treat that can replace Oreos or Little Debbies.
Abby approves!
Your family will love these simple cookies! Just don’t forget the almond milk 🙂
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