Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies


This recipe needs to be pressed into the hands of every newly gluten free person.  It’s an easy go to recipe when you need a plate of cookies to share. Your non-gluten free friends will love them as much as you will. It's a fast treat you can make for yourself when you're feeling deprived of your old favorites in the early weeks. They're a little on the crispy/crumbly side and perfect with with a cup of tea or So Delicious Coconut Milk. Three simple ingredients that are in most kitchens gluten free or not - peanut butter, sugar and an egg - that’s it.

If you have a peanut butter allergy, just substitute sunflower butter, almond butter or even cashew butter.  All work well and have slightly different nutty flavors.  I make sure any of the butters I use have only nuts or seeds and salt in the ingredients.

I use sugar most of the time but Xylitol works very well for those who cannot tolerate any sugar.  The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar but I find that a bit sweet for my taste. Lowering the sugar any further affects texture too much.  



Three Ingredient Cookies

Preheat oven to 350
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Makes 1 dozen

1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg

Mix together and shape into 12 balls – depending on the peanut butter you use you may have to squish the crumbly dough into balls.  Use a fork to cross hatch the tops for a traditional peanut butter cookie look.  I hold the sides of each cookie as I press the fork to keep them from crumbling and hold their shape.  It won’t be a problem when they are baked.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

Cool a few minutes before removing from your cookie sheet.

Cocoa Variation:

I doubled the recipe this morning and added 2 Tablespoons cocoa and 1 teaspoon vanilla to half of the dough.

2 comments:

Terri said...

These look wonderful, Chacha! Do you think I could substitute the egg? I would love to make them for Brian with Sunflower butter.

chacha said...

Hi Terri, I've never used an egg substitute for these but I can't see why it wouldn't work. The texture would be a little different, of course. If you try it before I do please let me know how they turn out.