Cinnamon Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls

Hello there!

A couple weeks ago, I used Momma pea's awesome recipe for dough balls. They turned out awesome and Ralph and I devoured most of them happily. But one day (before we devoured them) I shared some with a friend who told me she was allergic to chocolate! And so began my challenge to make a delicious dough ball sans chocolate:

Cinnamon Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls (w/o chocolate)

Very much inspired by Peas and Thank You's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls.

1/2 c. Earth Balance

3/4 c. natural peanut butter (I used chunky)
1/2 c. brown sugar

3/4 c. organic powdered sugar

1/2 t. almond extract

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. salt

1/2 T. cinnamon

1/2 t. ground ginger

1 1/2 c. unbleached flour

a few tablespoons of non-dairy milk

Directions: Mix the sugars, butter almond extract and peanut butter in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder/soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. At this point, I began to add a little bit of rice milk because the mixture was getting too dry. If this happens to you too, add just enough milk to make it mixable, but no more. Once you finish mixing, let rest for about 30 minutes, then bake for 10 minutes at 350 F.

 The tools:

 First, I mixed the sugars.

Then threw in the butter and peanut butter:

                                                                            Mixing:

Mixed to contentment:

Once I finished mixing, I began to mix my dry ingredients:

And then added the flour mixture to the sugar/peanut butter mixture:

I didn't photograph it (well technically Ralph was my photographer, so I didn't photograph any of these actually), but I did add a little bit of rice milk toward the end.

Oh and here's a little blooper: I thought I had to chill it in the fridge (like a pie crust?), and we took this pic, but I didn't actually chill this for the 30 minutes. It's fine resting at room temp.

After the rest period, bake for 10 minutes at 350 F.

And you will be left with the most scrumptious cinnamon spiced dough balls.

I though they turned out well. However, I love pretty much anything with cinnamon and sugar, so I guess I'm biased.

If you're not into chocolate treats, or you just want to bake something a little different, please give these a try! And if you do, please come back and let me know how your's turned out, or if you made your own variations on this recipe.

Have a nice week!

Thank Goodness For Leftovers!

Good evening! As promised, I'm going to continue my recap of last night through today. Last night, I was hungry for a treat, so Ralph and I made muffins. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into:

Banana, Pineapple and Coconut Muffins

based off these muffins with these changes (starting with the lack of chocolate, I wanted to use what I had)

•1 C Unsweetened Almond Milk

•1 t Apple Cider Vinegar
•2 C Whole Wheat Flour all purpose flour
•2 t Baking Soda
•1/3 C Raw Turbinado Sugar brown sugar
•3 large very ripe bananas 1 large banana
•1/3 C Unsweetened Apple Sauce extra almond milk
•1/2 - 3/4 C Chocolate Chips
- 1 ring chopped dried pineapple
- 1/3 cup shredded coconut
Directions
1.Put the almond milk and apple cider vinegar in a bowl and let sit.
2.In a big bowl combine the flour, baking soda, pineapple and coconut.
3.In a medium bowl mash the peeled bananas with a fork.
4.Add the sugar to the bowl with the bananas and mix it in.
5.Add the almond milk + milk (with the vinegar in it) to the bananas.
6.Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently mix until incorporated.
7.Bake at 350* for about 22 minutes for full sized muffins and 18 minutes for the minis.

I got this:

I had this one, which was pretty good. It was pretty close to the normal texture of a muffin, but I think I would use a little bit of oil instead of apple sauce or extra milk.

Ralph had 3, so either they were really good or he was still kinda hungry from dinner. No one knows except him.

I was still hungry so.... I had some strawberries! And that was it for last night.

This morning, I tried to up my water uptake with lots of watermelons and I had 1 1/2 muffins with the rest of my 'empty' jar of peanut butter.

Lunch:

Meatless lentil sauce with parm over wheaty bread, so delicious!

Sometime before dinner I snuck another piece of watermelon and the other half of muffin from this morning.

Dinner:

Closeups:

Sweet potato and broccoli stir fry with Gouda

2nd dinner, because the first one needed more staying power:

This time I used the spinach, pinto beans and tomatoes as a dip, so good!

Okay, goal for tomorrow, more protein earlier in the day. I think this may call for some overnight oats!

Until then, goodnight!