Magical 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

These cookies really are magical. Even though they contain no flour of any kind, they have a delicious, chewy, crumbly, cookie texture. Because they are almost pure peanut butter, they have a really rich peanut-buttery taste. I have to admit, though, the real shocker about this recipe is that I got it from Paula Deen, queen of unhealthy food, but if you use Splenda, they are actually a pretty healthy, low carb, gluten free, protein-rich dessert. 

I have a thing for super-easy, kind of healthy desserts with very few ingredients, like my Three Ingredient Whoopie Pies. These are super easy to whip up whenever a craving strikes. You could also turn these into PB&J thumbprint cookies by squishing a dent into them before baking and filling with jelly or squishing a Hershey's Kiss a couple of minutes before the end of the cooking time. 

**New development: We discovered that these turn into delicious CHOCOLATE peanut butter cookies when you add cocoa powder!

Magical Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup peanut butter, crunchy or smooth
1 cup sugar or baking Splenda. I like to do half and half
1 egg
1 t vanilla
optional: 2 T cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350. Stir all ingredients together. Roll dough into 1" balls and place on cookie sheet sprayed with nonstick spray. Flatten the dough balls with the tines of a fork to make a crisscross pattern (like the one in the photo). Bake 10-12 minutes. Cookies will still be soft when you remove them from the oven. They will firm up as they cool--trust me on this one! If you bake them until they are firm straight out of the oven, they will turn into sand when they cool.