The finished product – Batch #2
Sriracha, the spicy Thai chili sauce with the cartoon rooster on the bottle, is good stuff.
It works as a condiment on top of hot dogs and hamburgers; gives a nice kick to stir-fries and noodles; and adds some heat to pizza, pasta sauce or any dish needing a lift out of Bland City.
If you ask me, it’s hard to find a dish that can’t be improved with a little “Rooster Sauce.”
But cookies?
Okay, that’s a tough sell.
That’s one of the of the more interesting recipes in Randy Clemens’ hot-sauce-obsessed “Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook.” It includes 50 vegan recipes – from appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, main courses, drinks and, yes, desserts – where Sriracha is the star.
Randy Clemens’ hot-sauce obsessed cookbook.
I decided to try out Clemens’ recipe for Super Simple Peanut Butter and Sriracha Cookies because I was curious how this unconventional dessert ingredient would taste in a baked good. Could these peanut butter cookies be the one strike-out on Sriracha’s previously unblemished record?
I rolled up my sleeves, took the hot sauce from my fridge and went to work.
Full disclosure: I needed two attempts before I had an edible batch of the “super simple” cookies after I mistakenly added icing sugar to the batter instead of baking powder. Note to self: Labels are important. You can see the result of the icing sugar batch by scrolling down to the bottom of this blog. I like to call it “Peanut Butter Tar” because it spread out on my baking sheet like it was hit by a stream roller. It even had a disgusting layer of oil underneath. At least the batter didn’t take long to prepare, so I only wasted one hour of my life.
The second batch, thankfully, was edible and actually quite good.
But I was skeptical while preparing the batter. It was unlike any other cookie “dough” I’d ever mixed. It was flour-less and barely had any dry ingredients. Just ¼ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of baking soda to hold it all together in the oven.
Mixing all the ingredients together.
The mixture is stickier and thinner than your average cookie dough.
Instead of a thick dough, this mixture was closer in texture to pancake batter than anything else. It was thinner and much stickier.
The recipe called for a whooping two tablespoons of Sriracha, which gave the batter a reddish hue and made my kitchen smell peppery once I started baking the batch in the oven.
The result? About two dozen peanut butter cookies that bite back. The peanut butter was mellow and creamy, but the Sriracha gave it a nice spicy kick.
Since the recipe didn’t call for flour, they were much softer than other cookies. I had to cup them in my hands to get them into my mouth so I didn’t lose half the cookie to the floor.
These certainly weren’t conventional cookies, but they were moist, soft, creamy, and full of flavours that actually mixed well together.
Okay, Sriracha, you win again.
This recipe is also gluten-free.
Make it at home:
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
3 tablespoons water
1 cup natural creamy peanut butter, stirred well.
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons Sriracha
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
In a small bowl, mix the flaxseeds and water and let sit for several minutes, until a gel forms. In a medium bowl, mix the flax gel, peanut butter, maple syrup, Sriracha, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. (The dough will be more moist and sticky than tropical cookie dough.)
Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough on the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1 ½ inches apart. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly golden. Let cook on the pan for 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire cooking rack and let cool to room temperature.
And now, this is what happens when you add icing sugar to the batter instead of baking powder:
Completely flattened, with a nice oily layer underneath. Mmmm….
Trying to tear a piece off to attempt a taste. A lost cause…