In my world, chocolate and peanut butter are like a match made in heaven.  Growing up, chocolate peanut butter cups were always my favorite treat to receive on halloween, I adored those oatmeal no-bake cookies, and picked out all of the chocolate chips and peanuts in the trail mix.  The sweet and salty flavor combo is one that cannot be matched.

While these cookies are decadent and amazing, I have to be completely honest here…I did something sneaky.

These cookies contain no butter, but instead they contain AVOCADO!

Now, why would one add avocado to a wonderfully chocolatey and peanut buttery cookie?  For many reasons!

1. You cannot taste it (I promise! I took these cookies to a party and they were gobbled up.)
2. Avocado is full of healthy monounsaturated fat.
3. 1 cup of pureed avocado contains 368 calories and 34g of fat.  I cup of butter contains 1628 calories and 184.12g of fat.
4. You can sub avocado 1:1 for butter in recipes.

Now, am I saying you should never eat butter or put butter in your cookies ever again?  Absolutely not!  There is definitely a time and a place for a yummy, traditional cookie.  I just LOVE experimenting in the kitchen and giving you guys lots of options.

I’ve been wanting to try the whole “avocado in a cookie” thing for a while now, but finally got the courage to try it when I learned with the December Recipe Redux theme was.

December:  Grab a Book and Cook

We’re repeating last December’s theme due to popular demand: It’s the end of the year and we’re taking a moment to reflect – The Recipe ReDux has been around for 54 months! To celebrate, we’re playing a little party game this month: Grab your nearest cookbook and ReDux the recipe on page 54 or 154. We can’t wait to see the books you’re cooking from these days.

The original recipe came from one of my favorite treat cook books, Peanut Butter Comfort written by Averie of averiecooks.com

I decided to go with a treat since it is the holiday season and baking is totally on the brain.

The substitutions I made:

1. 1/2 cup of avocado for 1/2 cup of butter
2. 3/4 cup of creamy, natural peanut butter for 3/4 cup of regular creamy peanut butter
3. 1 1/4 cups coconut sugar for 1 1/4 cups of light brown sugar
4. 2 Tbsp coconut milk for 2 Tbsp cream
5. and I added 3 Tbsp of cocoa powder to mask the green hue to the batter due to the added avocado.

These truly are a treat.  The peanut butter in the dough and in the peanut butter cup pair perfectly with the sweet chocolate.  If you are looking for a fun cookie to add to the cookie tray, this one is it!

Question of the Day:

• Have you ever “reduxed” a recipe?  If you have, how did you do it?!