Lightened Up Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly Sandwich Cookies

If you like peanut butter cookies and you love PB&J then you will devour this tasty cookies.  This is a recipe from Fixate and I lightened it up even more using my new favorite peanut butter BetterNPeanut Butter which has only 100 calories per serving and reduced sodium.  I used my mother in-law’s strawberry jam, but you can use any jam you have on hand. This recipe makes about 18 sandwich cookies.

Recipe adapted from Fixate

Ingredients:

¾ cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

2 tablespoons powdered peanut butter

1 cup flour

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup strawberry jam

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Add sugar, peanut butter, egg, and vanilla extract to mixing bowl.  Mix on medium to combine.
3. Add in flour, powdered peanut butter, protein powder, salt, and baking powder with mixer on low.
4. If dough gets too dry you can add 1 teaspoon of water at a time.  The dough will look dry but should be able to form balls.
5. Use a small cookie scooper to form balls.  I used my smallest scooper (2 tablespoons) and divided the balls in half.
6. Spread balls out on baking sheet.
7. Bake 5-6 minutes.  Transfer to wire rack to cool.
8. Spread 1 teaspoon of jam on half of the cookies and top with another cookie. 
9. Store in an air tight container until these disappear.