Peanut butter cookie dough, but make it safe to eat? I’m in. This edible peanut butter cookie dough is chock full of peanut butter, quick to make, and just happens to be vegan!
If you’re here with me on this page, you’re probably a fiend for cookie dough. And I’m riiiight there with you. I dream about biting into tubes of storebought cookie dough and consider cookie baking as a way to get two desserts: the dough and the final cookies.
My edible cookie dough recipe for 2 is one of the most-viewed recipes on the blog and has more than 300K views on TikTok and Instagram. As a lover of both cookie dough and peanut butter, I wanted to make an edible peanut butter cookie dough version!
This edible peanut butter cookie dough is the real deal. It’s super peanut butter-y and has those delightful granules of sugar and hunks of chocolate that we love in cookie dough. You can eat it by the spoonful, make an awesome sundae or milkshake, or even eat it on toast (maybe don’t tell your mom if you do that one). And this recipe makes a small batch of edible cookie dough, so it’s perfect for two people or to keep it in the fridge to snack on.
Get ready for edible peanut butter cookie dough recipe for two.
Edible Peanut Butter Cookie Dough for Two
Can you eat raw cookie dough?
We’ve all eaten raw cookie dough at some point in our lives, but it’s not technically safe to eat. You can get foodborne illnesses like salmonella or e. coli from the raw eggs and raw flour in regular cookie dough. For this recipe, we make the cookie dough edible by not using eggs and quickly heat treating the flour.
What does it mean to heat-treat flour?
Heat-treated flour, sometimes referred to as tempered flour, is flour that’s had a quick blast of heat to to kill off any potential foodborne illnesses. Flour straight from the bag is raw flour, because the process of grinding flour doesn’t involve any heat. This means there may be bacteria in your flour and it’s technically not safe to eat until it’s been heated up and any potential bacteria killed.
I know we’ve all eaten our fair share of cookie dough without heat-treated flour. In this recipe, since we’re eating all the dough, it really is safer to use heat-treated flour so we get edible dough.
Ingredients and Substitutions
This recipe uses a lot of simple ingredients you’d normally find in peanut butter cookie dough, but it has no eggs or butter (who needs ’em anyway?)!
- Creamy peanut butter. I use regular ole Jiff or Skippy. You can use a natural peanut butter, but you may need more flour if the peanut butter is thinner than Jiff/Skippy.
- All-purpose flour. Feel free to substitute any other flour of your choice here! Almond flour may work, but I’ve yet to try it.
- Ground flax seed (sometimes called flax meal). This is our egg replacement, helping to mimic that smoothness that an egg brings to a dough. You can use milk instead, you just may need to add a little extra flour since milk is thinner.
- Granulated sugar / white sugar. We use granulated sugar to get that delicious sugary crunch in a cookie dough. You can sub in coconut sugar or brown sugar.
- Maple syrup. To add a little sweetness, flavor and moisture. You could try subbing honey here, but as a heads up I’ve never tested it!
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
- Mix ins! I love hunks of chopped chocolate, but you can also do chocolate chips, Oreos, marshmallows, pretzels, peanut butter chips, you name it. Go nuts.
What does it mean to heat treat your flour? Do I need to do it?
Heat-treated flour, sometimes referred to as tempered flour, is flour that’s had a quick blast of heat to kill off any potential foodborne illnesses. Flour straight from the bag is raw, because the process of grinding flour doesn’t involve any heat. This means there may be bacteria in your flour and it’s technically not safe to eat until it’s been heated up and any potential bacteria killed.
I know we’ve all eaten our fair share of cookie dough without heat treated flour. In this recipe, since we’re eating all the dough, it really does feel safer to heat treat.
Get funky with your mix-ins
This recipe is a really fun one to get creative with. There are a ton of mix-in options you can go with!
- Oreos (also vegan!)
- m&ms
- Marshmallows
- Pretzels
- Reeses Pieces
- Chopped up Snickers
Tips for the best peanut butter cookie dough
- Add some extra flour if the dough is too soft. The beauty of this cookie dough is that you can add more flour without affecting any final cookie. Add as much flour as you need to reach your perfect cookie dough consistency.
- Don’t over-mix once you add the flour. Fold in the flour it’s just incorporated, otherwise you will start to develop the gluten proteins in the flour and the dough will start to feel like play doh.
- Go nuts with your mix-ins! Oreos, pretzels, m&ms, you name it!
- Do something fun with the cookie dough! Swirl it into a tub of your favorite ice cream, make an awesome sundae or milkshake, eat it by the spoonful, or even try it on toast.
Peanut Butter Cookie Dough FAQs
Unfortunately no. The dough doesn’t have a leavening agent, so it won’t rise into actual cookies. I initially tested this recipe to be a cookie, but wasn’t obsessed with the results and loved the dough so much more.
Yes! Go for it. Make sure to stir first to remove any oil separation. If your peanut butter is more liquidy than Jiff / Skippy, add extra flour as needed.
To make a flax egg, you combine flax seed with water and wait 5 minutes until it thickens. For this recipe, we do half a flax egg, so the ratio is 1 1/2 tsp. flax meal to 1 TBS + 1 tsp. water.
Heat-treated flour has been heated so that the bacteria in the raw flour is killed. This makes cookie dough safe to eat without baking it.
How to store this edible peanut butter cookie dough
You can keep this dough in the fridge in a well-sealed container for five days. You can also stash it in the freezer for up to three months. If you’re going the freezer route, I recommend rolling the dough into balls beforehand so it’s easy to pop one out at a time.
More Great Recipes
- If you love edible cookie dough, check out the classic edible chocolate chip cookie dough recipe for two!
- If you want to make more classic bakes, check out birthday cake blondies or salty fudgy brownies.
- If you are a fiend for brown butter, check out brown butter blondies, maple miso butter miso blondies, BIG brown butter chocolate chip cookies, or brown butter sugar cookies with caramelized white chocolate.
If you make this edible peanut butter cookie dough recipe for two, be sure to tag me on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such and please leave a review below!
Edible Peanut Butter Cookie Dough for Two
15
minutesPeanut butter cookie dough, but make it safe to eat? I’m in. This edible peanut butter cookie dough is chock full of peanut butter, quick to make, and just happens to be vegan!
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Ingredients
3 TBS. (22 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. ground flax seed (sometimes referred to as flax meal). You can replace with 1 1/2 TBS. of milk if you don’t have ground flax.
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 TBS. maple syrup
3 TBS. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt (or reduce to just a pinch of salt if you want to sprinkle flaky sea salt on top)
Chopped chocolate or any mix-ins you want!
Directions
- First, we’re going to heat treat the flour – you can heat treat in a microwave or oven. I recommend heat treating a little more flour than the recipe calls for, in case you need to add more to your dough to get the consistency you want.
Oven method: Preheat your oven to 300°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. We want the tray rimmed so the flour doesn’t slide off and to have parchment paper so you can easily remove the flour. Sprinkle the flour on top and bake for 3 minutes. If you have a meat thermometer, check that the flour has reached 165°F. If the flour turns brown it’s burnt and you can try again. Remove from the pan and place in a cup to cool to room temperature.
Microwave method: Place your flour in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for one minute, stirring after 30 seconds. If you have a weaker microwave, you can tack on another 30 seconds. If you have a meat thermometer, you can make sure the flour has reached 165°F, but otherwise 60 to 90 seconds in the microwave should work. - Make your flax egg. Add the ground flax seed to a very small bowl. Add 1 TBS + 1 tsp. water. Stir to combine and let sit for five minutes to thicken.
- Add the thickened flax egg, peanut butter, maple syrup, granulated sugar, vanilla extract and salt to a bowl. Using a spatula, mix until evenly combined.
- Fold in the cooled flour until JUST incorporated (you don’t want to overmix as you can develop the gluten and make the dough tough). Add more flour if you’re not reaching your desired consistency. Fold in any mix-ins.
- Now you’re ready to eat! You can swirl it into a tub of ice cream in the freezer, roll the dough into balls, or eat it straight from the jar. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt if you’d like. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for five days, or in the freezer for three months.