I love trail mix so much. It’s dangerous for me to even keep it around. One handful turns into five, which very quickly turns into the whole bag. You too? After recently baking caramel corn into Caramel Corn Chocolate Chip Cookies, I decided to bake in trail mix. I loaded up favorite Peanut Butter Cookie recipe with my favorite trail mix add-ins. The result is a chewy, dense, hearty cookie that’s loaded to the max with texture.
Interestingly, this cookie dough base contains NO flour, NO butter, and I didn’t add any white sugar. I doctored up the rich peanut butter dough with 1/3 cup each of: oats, raisins, chocolate chips, and peanut butter-filled M&Ms.
If you have a bag of actual trail mix, adding 1 generous cup of that will save you from piecing together one-third cup of this and that. However, this is a great recipe for using up bottom-of-the-bags of chips, pretzels, random baking chips, and various odds and ends that plague my cupboards. Work in your favorite trail mix goodies such as crumbled pretzels, dried fruit like craisins or apricots; butterscotch or white chocolate chips rather than semi-sweet. Add mini Rolos, peanut butter cups, or any diced candy bar. I don’t like nuts in cookies but if you do, sprinkle in some peanuts, almonds, or another favorite. Add sunflower seeds or pepitas. Mix-and-match.
When mixing the dough, make sure to cream the peanut butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla for at least 5 minutes, or until it’s no longer gritty. The dough will likely be oily, and this is okay. It’s important to use storebought, conventional peanut butter like Jif or Skippy. Don’t use natural peanut butter and don’t use Homemade Peanut Butter. Your cookies will be prone to spreading if you do. Add the baking soda, oats, and add-ins. The dough is jam-packed with goodies. Almost as many add-ins as there is dough. No complaints from me.
Form 16 mounds of cookie dough with a medium 2-inch cookie scoop or make balls with your hands. It’s important to compact the mounds so the add-ins don’t slip out because the dough is oily. Just push them back in and squeeze the mounds firmly if the add-ins try to wiggle out. After the mounds are formed, flatten them slightly and refrigerate the dough for at least two hours, up to five days, before baking. Cookies baked with unchilled dough will spread and bake flat and thin rather than thick and puffy.
The advantage to forming the dough into mounds and refrigerating them is that you have the option of only baking off as many as you want. Sometimes I just want a few cookies, not a whole batch. That said, this is a small-batch recipe, making only about 16 cookies total so feel free to bake them all at once. They stay soft for up to one week. The cookies are supremely texture-filled from the firm chocolate chips, chewy raisins, hearty sprinkling of oats, and M&Ms. They’re like having a handful of trail mix and a peanut butter cookie, all in one. They’re peanut butter flavor is present and distinct, but the oats and other add-ins temper it a bit. If you’re looking for a really intense, unadulterated peanut butter cookie, try these.
And if you’re a trail mix fan, I suggest you bake it into cookies. It’ll be the best tasting trail mix you’ve ever had.
Related Recipes:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies (GF) – The BEST PB Cookies I’ve ever had. There’s NO Flour, NO Butter, and NO White sugar used! Soft, chewy & oozing with dark chocolate. Crazy good! This is the dough base I used to create the Trail Mix Cookies Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes!
Soft and Puffy Peanut Butter Coconut Oil Cookies – Baking with coconut oil doesn’t make the food taste like coconut and instead makes it richer, better, softer, and more moist
Thick and Soft Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies – Richly and intensely chocolate-flavored cookies with NO Flour, NO Butter, and NO White sugar used. They’re thick, dense, soft, chewy and almost brownie-like
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies – One of my favorite cookie recipes on my site. Chewy, filled with texture, and combines three of my favorite cookies in one – chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter – and very easy to make, no mixer required
Caramel Corn Chocolate Chip Cookies – Baking caramel corn into cookies is one way to make sure you don’t gobble the whole bag in a sitting. Gobble the cookies instead
Compost Cookies – Potato chips, butterscotch and chocolate chips, and so much more is added to these cookies with a salty ‘n sweet, crunchy and chewy profile
Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies – Everything but the kitchen sink is tossed into these cookies: Cornflakes, potato chips, pretzels, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. The recipe comes from a popular cookbook and I’m glad I tried them to see what all the hype was about
Do you like Trail Mix? What are your favorite trail mix add-ins? Thanks for the entries in the Kitchen Grater and Zester Giveaway and the KithenAid 5-Quart Stand Mixer Giveaway!
