My 10 Best and Easy Peanut Butter Recipes Joy the Baker

I haven’t felt like making meals at all this week.  I don’t even seem to have the energy to cobble together my usual lazy stand-bys: scrambled eggs and a carb, toasted.  Strangely, I’m also not allowing myself to order any expensive (and everything is expensive right now) takeout so… well, I’ll be eating bananas smeared with peanut butter for the foreseeable future.  I did manage to bake off a batch of  peanut butter cookies in a sweet tooth energized baking moment. I suppose this week is plainly peanut butter themed.  Allow my laze to inspire your kitchen movements  – we’re always rather in sync so maybe you’re feeling the weights around your ankles too.  Here are my two handfuls of easy peanut butter recipes to get you up, in the kitchen, and back on the couch with a worthy snack.

•  The most popular peanut butter recipe on the site also tells me that you too are tired, don’t want to carry the flour bin out of the pantry, but still want cookies like… right now. If you haven’t yet made these 4 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies, let them be your balm.  The peanut butter flavor and crisp but chewy texture are perfect! AND they’re gluten-free!

•  In a mash-up you might not have known you needed, I put cookies on top of softened and sweetened strawberries and made this Peanut Butter Cookie and Strawberry Jam Cobbler that tastes like a sandwich meets cobbler and please treat yourself to a pint of vanilla ice cream while you’re picking up fresh strawberries.

•  I’m going to go ahead and file this easy peanut butter recipe under Very Important Life Hack. These Peanut Butter Banana Bonbons are two slices of banana filled with peanut butter and dipped in chocolate and somehow when frozen the sum is so much greater than the parts. I think these are especially delightful because the call of a sweet tooth is basically an emergency and a stash of these in the freezer is like a little first aid kit at the ready.

• Do you take your coffee with cream or sugar?  I’d like it black with a side of these Dipped and Crisp Peanut Butter Cookies if that’s not too much to ask.

•  This vintage recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread stands the test of time and is still one of my favorite ways to banana bread.

•  I feel like we unfairly relegate gingersnaps to the holiday season but these soft and chewy Peanut Butter Gingersnap Cookies are always crave worthy.  (And the cookie dough is nice to nip from if you’re into that sort of thing!)

•  Everyone in Ohio is mad about how I dip Mom’s Famous Peanut Butter Balls in chocolate but that’s ok – I love anyone who is that passionate about peanut butter and chocolate.

•  Also in Mom’s baking arsenal are these Peanut Butter Love cookies, traditionally made with Hershey’s Kisses. I turned the dial to 11 and added peanut butter cups because of course I did.  Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

•  I snuck a HEFTY dollop of peanut butter into the frosting of the magical Everybody’s Birthday Cake.  Sure the peanut butter is optional but… also it’s not (unless a peanut will kill you in which case I’m sure you haven’t made it this far into the list, my goodness).

The king of easy peanut butter recipes:  Browned Butter Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats.  A smear of peanut butter, nutty browned butter, and extra mini marshmallows give these treats that iconic marshmallow pull.  Few things in life are better.

•  Honorable mentions go to this Espresso Chocolate Sheet Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting from Williams Sonoma and these Peanut Butter and Jelly Petit Fours that are a labor of love but too sweet to ignore.

Happy baking, friends!