Tempting Trail Mix Cookies

Trader Joe’s makes the best trail mix. It’s called Tempting Trail Mix. The name really doesn’t do it justice; it won’t last long enough in your pantry to be tempting. Normally with trail mix I’ll just pick out the chocolate bits until there’s only fruit and nuts left, but not this one. It has chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, peanuts, cashews, almonds, and dried cherries. What’s not to love?

See, nothing but good.

Obviously these needed to be made into cookies to be enjoyed all the time. I mixed some of the trail mix into a super simple gluten-free peanut butter cookie batter; the peanuts and peanut butter chips in the trail mix and peanut butter in the cookie dough make for a delicious triple dose of peanuts.

I used 2 egg whites in place of the egg since I wanted to use up a container of egg whites and the cookies were slightly puffier and softer than normal and the batter was also looser to work with. I wouldn’t say one version was better than the other but I would be aware that subtle changes like that can change the end result.

Tempting Trail Mix Cookies

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients(Makes 20 cookies):

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 2/3 cup cane sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup Tempting Trail Mix

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix all of the ingredients together.
3. Take off pieces of dough and roll into 1-inch balls. place the balls on a lined baking tray and flatten lightly. Repeat with all of the dough.
4. Bake for 15-17 minutes until the tops of the cookie are firm to the touch.
5. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before moving.

These came out just as good—if not better—than the trail mix. I had trouble not just eating the batter. The chocolate chips melted perfectly in the oven and had just the right bitter flavor for the lightly-sweet dough. I also can’t get enough of how easy a Silpat mat makes baking. I don’t know what took me so long getting with the times.