Averie Cooks

-1 To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine peanut butter, coconut oil, egg, sugar and beat on medium-high speed to cream until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Note - Coconut oil should be the consistency of soft butter like you'd use to cream with sugar and eggs in traditional cookies. If coconut oil is rock hard, microwave it in a small bowl for 5 to 10 seconds or just until it begins to soften. If coconut oil is runny or melted, place it in the freezer momentarily until it firms up. A tiny amount of runniness is fine; it's an oil and that happens. But do not use melted or purely liquid coconut oil because you can't effectively cream a liquid; it would be like trying to cream liquid butter.
-1 Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the vanilla and beat to incorporate, about 1 minute. Add 1 cup flour, corn starch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute. If your dough seems quite wet, sloppy, or isn’t combining, add up to another one-quarter cup flour, one tablespoon at a time, for a total of 1 1/4 cups. The dough shouldn’t be sticky or tacky, and a little loose and oily is preferred to dry and crumbly. It should have a Play-Doh like consistency, and if pinched and squished, it’ll stick together and to itself, but not to your hands. Over-flouring the dough will cause the cookies to be prone to cakiness and dryness.
-1 Using a medium cookie scoop, form mounds that are 2 heaping tablespoons in size; or divide dough into approximately 18 equal-sized pieces. Place dough mounds on a large plate, and slightly flatten each mound. Get the dough mounds in the exact shape you want to bake them in because after chilling, flattening or re-shaping the dough is difficult. Cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours; up to 5 days. Do not bake these cookies with dough that has not been properly chilled because they will spread.
-1 Preheat oven to 350°F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray. Place dough on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart; I bake a maximum of 8 per sheet. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, or until tops have just set, even if slightly undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center. They firm up as they cool and I recommend the lower end of the baking range. The cookies in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled for 2 days, left at room temp for 30 minutes to warm up slightly, then baked for 8 minutes, with trays rotated once at the 4-minute mark.
-1 Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes before moving. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
-1 Adapted from Soft Batch Dark Brown Sugar Coconut Oil Cookies