Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread

These little five-ingredient Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread elephants marched their way into my kitchen the other day. Even though they’re made with peanut butter (get it – elephants? peanuts? ha ha), the crunch doesn’t actually come from peanuts. Even better: it’s turbinado sugar.

Until now, I’d only ever used turbinado sugar – the kind with the large golden crystals – on two types of occasions: to stir into coffee when “regular” sugar wasn’t available or to sprinkle on top of muffins. It never occurred to me to bake with it. I’m glad that a shortbread recipe on the back of a turbinado sugar package enlightened me to its crunchy potential. What you get is a sandy-textured peanut butter shortbread (the peanut butter was my contribution to the recipe) with coarse sugar pebbles interspersed throughout. It’s fabulous!

It’s gotten me thinking about other baking situations where you might want an extra sugar crunch inside your dough or batter…like maybe pie crusts? Or biscotti? How about pancakes? Apparently you can substitute turbinado sugar one for one with refined sugar in recipes. I still have a few cups left in this bag…I’m ready to experiment!

Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread

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11 Comments

  1. Turbinado is one of my favorites for adding a little crunch and sparkle. These are adorable cookies!

    Posted 7.18.11 Reply
  2. tami wrote:

    these are adorable 🙂 i’m a sucker for peanut butter cookies…

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  3. I only found turbinado this year for a recipe – love it! The first pic is too darn cute 🙂

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  4. These are adorable and they sound delicious!

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  5. Marla wrote:

    Love turbinado sugar. Those little elephants are darling 🙂

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  6. Big hit with my daughter! She says you should make carrot shortbread shaped as bunnies next.

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  7. These look so great! I love peanut butter anything!

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  8. These cookies are adorable. You don’t have to make food look fun for me to want to eat it but I know there is no way I could pass these up if I saw them. The fact that they have turbinado sugar is a definite draw too.

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  9. I love the elephant shapes and I can’t wait to try shortbread with peanut butter!

    Posted 7.19.11 Reply
  10. So cute! I think I’ve only used turbinado for topping too.

    Posted 7.27.11 Reply
  11. 5 ingredients!? What a fabulous after school snack! They are so cute.

    Posted 8.8.11 Reply