Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 1 cup organic, chunky natural peanut butter
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Place racks in the top third.
2. In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. in a separate larger bowl combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla. Stir until combined.
3. Pour the flour mixture over the larger bowl and stir together. Mix until they form a slightly dusty dough.
4. Let sit for five minutes, give one more quick stir, just a stroke or two.
5. Now drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Press down on each one gently with the back of a fork. It's a loose batter, so if you're set on doing criss-crosses, go ahead and chill the batter for an hour or so before this step.
6. Bake for 10, maybe 11 minutes - but don't over bake or they will be dry.
7. Let cool five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

When right off the cooling rack, the cookies were good. My roommate and I agree, though, that when cold the next day, they were amazing.