Peanut Butter & Honey Cookies

When I was a child, my mother (wisely!) didn't want me to eat sugar. So she wouldn't let us have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Instead, I grew up with peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and peanut butter and honey dripping off graham crackers. So using honey to sweeten peanut butter cookies is a natural for me.

If you're going to eat a cookie, this is a good one. The peanut butter adds nutritious protein, which also helps mellow out the blood sugar spike from the honey.

My husband Larry likes these cookies so much, he asked me to make a whole batch just for him!

Makes about 3 dozen

1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup honey
1 egg
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. In a mixing bowl, with the hand mixer, cream butter until smooth and soft, then add each ingredient in the order listed, mixing about 15 seconds after each addition. It is important to do all the mixing to make the cookie light and crisp. The final dough will be fairly soft.
3. Place parchment paper or silpat on a cookie sheet.
4. Fill a 1-inch ice cream scoop (or a teaspoon) and drop the dough on the cookie sheet. These cookies do not spread, so you can place them about 1-inch apart.
5. Flatten by making an "x" on the top with the tines of a fork. Dip the fork in a small bowl of flour between each pressing. If the fork sticks too much, put the dough in the refrigerator for five or ten minutes. Hot cookie sheets can make the dough too soft. While one batch is baking, you can lay out and flatten the next batch on sheets of parchment paper, then transfer the sheets of parchment paper to the cookie sheets.
6. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the bottoms are just browned. Lift one cookie with a spatula to check. The tops of the cookies will be light in color.

Peanut Butter Thumbprints
Instead of flattening the cookies with a fork, make a "thumbprint" depression with your thumb to form a crater. Dip your thumb in flour between each pressing if it sticks. Before baking, fill each cookie with fruit-sweetened strawberry fruit spread, or any flavor you like.