3-Ingredient Paleo "Peanut Butter" Cookies

I promised a recipe using the homemade sunflower seed butter I posted last week, and these paleo "peanut butter" cookies are it.

I'm not going to lie: I love peanut butter. I miss it (and still sometimes stuff my face with it). Almond butter seemed like a good replacement at first, but it just doesn't have that distinctive, robust peanut taste. Enter sunflower seed butter. I knew that many families with peanut-allergic kids used sunflower seed butter, but I was skeptical that it tasted at all like peanut butter.

Then I tried it. I'm a convert.

Sure, if you performed a blind side-by-side taste test, you'd surely be able to tell the difference. But as far as all nut and seed butters go, sunflower seed butter and peanut butter are pretty damn close.

I'd wanted to get this recipe up a lot sooner, but there just wasn't time. For the past year, I've been an event planner for a local convention. Last weekend was the event - 3 full days of the event, plus set up and tear down time. I don't know why I thought I'd get this recipe posted before then, but it just didn't happen. Actually, I'm lucky that I'm getting it posted now! I expected I would need a lot more recovery time after averaging 4-5 hours of sleep for 4 nights and spending the rest of those days on my feet and making some tough decisions.

I was able to manage the event well for those few days, but I can't imagine having a job that would require me to make that my life!

I'm one of the planners for next year's event, too, so I get to do this all again next year. Oh well - it was a successful weekend, and so much of our feedback is positive. Everyone had fun, and that's all the staffers can hope for.

And now that the event itself is over, I can breathe a sigh of relief and nibble on the rest of my "peanut butter" cookies.

I self-identify as a terrible cookie baker. 79% of the time, my cookies turn out depressingly half-burnt, even if I follow a well-reputed recipe exactly. Those aren't very good odds. My cookies have flopped enough times that I know it's user error, not a faulty recipe. Trouble is, there are so many other things to make out there that I don't bother with learning how to correct whatever cookie-baking knowledge I have...so typically, I just avoid baking cookies.

Once in a blue moon, though, a cookie craving creeps up on me.

This time, it was for peanut butter cookies. Remembering that I am capable of creating a decent cookie recipe despite my typical track record (see the Halvah Cookies that my dad loves), I decided to simply use the same type of formula with sunflower seed butter instead of tahini.

Because cookies don't have to be that hard. So I made some homemade sunflower seed butter and got to baking.

And the best part? Including the sunflower seed butter production, it only took me 30 minutes to make a batch of cookies! Now that's impressive, amiright?

And, just like the sunflower seed butter, I'm impressed with how my pictures turned out. It was such a good day for shooting! I can tell I've done a good job when I have too many great pictures to post and I end up having to select my super-favorites out of my favorites.

I hope the next photography day goes just as well.

Now you'd better get a batch of these "peanut butter" cookies made, because you'll want some around for next week's recipe!

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