Healthier Bakery-Style Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Prepare the dough. In a large mixing bowl, cream peanut butter, coconut sugar, and coconut oil for 2–3 minutes until smooth. The sugar may not fully incorporate into the mixture, but it should look mostly homogenous.

Add egg and vanilla extract and beat again until incorporated. Set mixture aside.

Prepare the dry ingredients. Stir flour, oats, baking soda, sea salt, and cinnamon in a medium-size bowl. Add chopped dates and toss to coat—this will prevent them from clumping together in the dough.

Finally, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet 1/2 cup at a time until no clumps of flour remain. The dough will likely be very soft, so you’ll want to refrigerate it for at least an hour before you scoop it into cookie portions.

When dough is firm enough to handle, remove from the fridge. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

If you have a medium-size cookie scooper, use this to scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet. If you don’t have a scooper, use a large soup spoon to create portions just larger than a golfball. Leave 1-2 inches between each cookie on the sheet.

Bake for 11–13 minutes. You’ll know they’re finished baking when the edges are a golden-brown color—use a spatula to carefully lift a few cookies of the sheet to check the color. The center will look doughy still, but leave them on the sheet for about 10 minutes after removing them from the oven to allow them to firm up a bit. Patience!

Serve immediately and store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to two weeks. Enjoy!