This is one fast, easy, and very delicious winter craft for adults with special needs. You can use the peanut butter cookie recipe here, premade peanut butter or other cookie dough from the store, or you can use your favorite cookie recipe. It’s the decoration that counts! Antlers can be pretty intricate, so this recipe uses chocolate covered, yoghurt covered or plain pretzels for those. The salt on plain pretzels doesn’t mess with the overall taste of the cookie either.

Peanut Butter Cookie Ingredients

• 1 tbsp Vanilla
• 1 Egg
• 1¾ Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 3/4 tsp Salt
• 3/4 Cup of Chunky Peanut Butter
• 1/2 Cup Shortening
• 1¼  Cup (packed) Light Brown Sugar
• 3 tbsp Milk
• Large Mixing Bowl
• Hand Mixer or Stand Mixer
• Baking Tray
• Spray Oil, Butter or Vegetable Oil for Baking Tray

Ingredients for Decorating

• Plain, Yoghurt or Chocolate Covered Mini Pretzels
• Red M&Ms
• Chocolate Chips

Peanut Butter Cookie Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F degrees.
2. Oil the baking sheet with butter, vegetable oil, or nonstick cooking spray.
3. Combine shortening, brown sugar, peanut butter, milk, and vanilla in your mixing bowl.
4. With an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and well-blended.
5. Add in the egg and continue to mix.
6. Put the flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and stir them together.
7. Using your electric whisk, gradually combine the flour mixture with the peanut butter mixture. Just add a little at a time. 
8. Mix until combined but avoid overmixing. 
9. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls.
10. Bake cookies for 8 minutes on 375F. 

Decorating Instructions

1. Remove the cookies from the oven and let cool just ever so slightly. 
2. When the cookies are still warm but not too hot to handle, begin shaping them into faces–you’ll need to work pretty fast on this, or you can just leave them as round cookies. To do this, take your thumb and forefinger and gently squeeze the sides to make more of a face shape (see above picture).
3. Before cookies are all the way cool, add your red M&Ms as noses. 
4. Next, press in your pretzel antlers, making sure to have at least half of the lower portion of the pretzel pressed into the cookie to keep it stable. 
5. When the cookies are still malleable but a little warm, add your chocolate chip eyes.
6. Let cool and put some real thought and/or action into eating them!

Note: To be sure that their features don’t fall off, the cookies need time to cool completely before you move them.

About Stephen’s Place

Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).

If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information. 

Stephen’s Place is a private-pay apartment community due to our state-of-the-art amenities and programs. We are a nonprofit and do not profit from our community. We are private pay because we spend more than some housing communities to ensure that our residents are comfortable and can safely live their lives with independence and dignity.