Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Gluten free recipes can be a real challenge when you're substituting different items in for regular all purpose flour. So my preference is to just go for a naturally gluten free recipe that I know will work. And it doesn't involve any other type of substitutions like special gums and different types of nut flowers in order to recreate what we are typically used to having in our gluten style of recipes. This is one of my favorite peanut butter cookie recipes. It only has three ingredients. It comes together super fast and easy. And honestly, I prefer these over our more traditional peanut butter cookie and they're, they're just so moist and delicious and a super tasty cookie. So let's get started when measuring out items that are a little bit more gooey like a peanut butter. It can sometimes be challenging to fit them into our traditional measuring cups. And so I prefer to actually utilize a scale because it's one more accurate and too much easier to just use one utensil rather than trying to clean up an additional measuring cup. So what I like to do is place my mixing bowl onto the scale and tear it out, which means basically just get it to zero and then you can use your spatula and measure your peanut butter just by weight. Now, weight doesn't always transfer over the same as, um, a volume measurement like a cup. So you do have to, uh make sure that if you are converting a recipe that you get the right amount compared to uh what your recipe calls for volume versus weight. So, um, I'm using a cup of peanut butter, but it actually scales out pretty evenly uh to uh your volume uh uh measurement as well. So, um, eight ounces of that, we're gonna do one egg and then this is a half a cup of sugar and in your recipe uh that you can download for this video, um, you'll have both your volume measurements as well as your weight measurements. So makes this nice and easy. We're gonna go ahead and get this on to a mixer. Now, you can absolutely use a hand mixer for this process and if you uh want a good arm workout, you could absolutely just mix this together uh with a uh spatula that, that works really easily. Um But I prefer just to make sure it's nice and creamed together. Well, so I go ahead and put it on a stand mixer just for ease. I start on low as always to get our ingredients to combine a little bit and then you can turn it up, it really only takes a few seconds. This is, there isn't a lot of creaming happening here. This is just a matter of getting our ingredients combined nicely. And in fact, I'm not even gonna worry about scraping the bowl and mixing again. I'm just gonna scrape the bowl and then um mix it together with my spatula. So we just wanna make sure that all of our ingredients are scraped from the sides and combined. But again, no need to throw it back on the mixture to do that. You can just do that straight in the bowl. OK? Once you have that mixture come together, happens very quickly, you can go right onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Um Any uh sprays that you might use could potentially have flour and gluten mixed into them. So just be mindful when you are specifically trying to make a gluten free recipe that you're not using some of the convenience items like the spray that has both the uh flour as well as the fat or the shortening in there to make something grease proof. And then you definitely want to use a cookie scoop. Um These cookies will flatten just a little bit, they'll spread out uh just a tiny bit but not by much. So, having a nice round scoop when you are placing these cookies onto the tray is really great. Just from a visual perspective. It allows all of your cookies to be the exact same uh diameter and have the same volume to them. And because they don't spread, you don't have to, uh, space them out too far apart on the cookie sheet, depending upon the size scoop that you are using. Um, each recipe will yield a slightly different number of cookies. So I, um, I am just using, this is just a traditional cookie scoop and there's probably a volume measurement on here. Um, although I can't see it anywhere. Um, but I will also include in your recipe. Download uh some of the supplies like the cookie scoop for you so that you can see exactly what I'm using and know the measurement. We'll just stick one more over here. Again. These don't spread a whole lot. So you don't have to stress over, um, the, uh, the cookies bumping into each other and you can always come in and rearrange and make things a little more spaced out. However you prefer, let's do that and then utilizing a fork. So we want, we typically with gluten free recipes. Um, people will try to make them look like the original so that nobody knows the difference. And oftentimes that works really great just because there's no, um, there are some differences in texture and flavor uh for most recipes that you're suing out. But because this is just a very traditional style of recipe that's naturally gluten free, we don't have to stress so much about, um, making sure that they look exactly like, uh, a traditional peanut butter cookie, but in the spirit of making things look more natural, just grab a fork and a little bit of water and you can just put the tis of the fork through. This is a way to, um, decorate a peanut butter cookie. That is, gosh, very traditional, very recognizable something that, um, certainly my grandmother, uh, did when she was baking off peanut butter cookies. So, um, you know, it's a fun little decor. If you had a cute little cookie stamp that had, you know, maybe a different pattern or a floral design on it, you could certainly use that too, but we're gonna stick with the traditional decor and the water is just to allow the fork not to stick to our batter because this doesn't have any sort of flour in it. It tends to be a gooier uh batter and becomes a little bit sticky and you could absolutely try this without the water if your batter comes out and it doesn't stick, no problem. Um, I just find the water helps a little bit with the uh process. So let's get this into a 350 degree oven. If you have convection. Of course, you can knock that down by 25 degrees. These are gonna bake for approximately 10 to 15 minutes and there's a wider time frame on the, um, the scale of timing for each person based on your altitude and your location that you're living in. Um, these are not, again, they don't have necessarily in them. Um, they do have egg, which does expand but the, um, the cookies aren't going to really spread out like a traditional cookie does. So they're gonna stay a little thicker and so it will depend a little bit on, uh, what your scoop measure is. If these are tinier, you can get away with the lower end of your time scale. If you decide to do a larger peanut butter cookie, then of course, you'll have to bake it off a little bit longer. So, for this particular size, I'm gonna guess we're in that 10 to 12 minute range and it should bake off nicely. So let's get these in the oven. The peanut butter cookies have come out of the oven and they smell delicious, first of all. Um, but what you'll see is a very traditional looking peanut butter cookie. Um, it has all of those little golden brown uh tops and, um, those very characteristic little cracks through uh, the peanut butter cookie. That is, uh, one of the things that I always remembered growing up and eating peanut butter cookies was, um, they, they sort of look like stones to me just with all the little cracks, they look, um, they look really unique and different from a lot of other cookies that I grew up with. Um, just a little note about baking them. I have a tendency to under bake these cookies just a hint compared to, um, what you might do for other styles of cookies. Um, you definitely want the sides of the cookie to be firm and hold up. Um, but if you tap in the center and they're still in the oven, it might be a little softer and it might just kind of give a little bit and not pop right back up. That's the perfect time to take them out of the oven because they're gonna continue to bake for just a few minutes on the cookie sheet when you pull them out and it keeps that inside really nice. And, um, just as a little bit more moisture to it, if you don't over bake them, so make sure that you don't over bake your cookies and if you want to double check and just see if your cookies are absolutely ready. Slide your, uh, little spatula under here. These are still pretty hot, but the bottom is nice and golden and that is what you're looking for. Now, you don't want to let these sit on your cookie sheet for too long before you transfer them over to a rack. Um, these do not have any, uh, grease underneath the cookie. Of course, there's some fats in the peanut butter. They're gonna help release them from your pan. Um, but I just find maybe a minute or two on the cookie sheet just to finish up. Um, last minute baking and then uh right on to your rack to cool. Now these can be stored in an airtight container uh for about a week. Actually, they hold up really nicely and um, they're quite delicious. If they last a week in your house, I will be shocked because these are so good. They usually fly off the plate and are gone before I've even had a taste of my own. The family really loves these so, um, make sure that you give these a few minutes to rest. Um, it's gonna firm up the bottom of your cookie a little bit better as they start to cool and then you can handle them, uh, a little bit easier, but these cookies will actually hold up really well to, uh, being handled in touch once they're cool. And then of course, we always want to put our cookies on a beautiful platter. I might wait just a little longer. These are really literally fresh out of the oven, nice and hot and then I'm gonna go ahead and plate just a few of them so you can see how gorgeous these cookies actually are. So enjoy your peanut butter cookies. These are just fabulous and as I mentioned, naturally gluten free. So they're great for anyone and everyone. And truly, again, I prefer this cookie over a more traditional peanut butter cookie. It just has so much more flavor.