The Best Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter is just one of those foods for me. I can go months without any of it, and then suddenly I need to eat an entire jar to feel satisfied. I don't know what makes it so addictive, but I love it! I was in one of my massive peanut butter consumption phases when my coworker mentioned how much she wanted peanut butter cookies. Why hadn't I thought of that!? Yum! So I got to work.

I reviewed several recipes for peanut butter cookies. I checked the ingredients and was amazed at how much sugar went in to them. I was not a fan. In addition, several of the cookies looked dry and crumbly. Although I enjoy a cookie with a good crumb, these looked brittle, hardly what I wanted for my cookies. I tried several recipes including your basic sugar, egg, peanut butter, cookies, but I didn't care for them. They were overly sweet and not very dynamic. I finally came across a gluten free cookie that was incredible, It did not have the height I was looking for, but the outside was crisp, the inside was chewy, they could bend without breaking into a million little crumbs and they were addictive. Best of all, they were not laden with 2 cups of sugar! Could this be real? It certainly was.

So as not to put too much stock in my own opinion, I made sure to have others try the various cookies I had baked. My roommate, my coworkers, my workout buddies...they all agreed that these were the best cookies hands down.

I used Chelsea's Messy Apron's recipe. I didn't even make any changes, it was that good! So I have re-blogged it, if you will. Thank you Chelsea for this delicious gem!

The Best Gluten -Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 7 minutes
Total Time: 17 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 4 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup peanut butter chips + chocolate chips, or nuts, heath bits, etc.

 

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a medium sized bowl stir together the peanut butter, honey, and brown sugar. Do NOT warm up the peanut butter or the honey.
3. Add in the oats, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla extract. Stir well.
4. In a separate bowl lightly beat the egg and then add it to the mixture.
5. Stir in desired add-ins.
6. The mixture will be thick and hard to stir. Continue stirring until combined and then use a cookie scoop to scoop out the dough. Press the dough very tightly in the cookie scoop to form the balls. Without a cookie scoop these tend to crumble.
7. If not using a cookie scoop you will have to work with the dough a little bit more by squeezing it into a ball.
8. Form the small balls onto a cookie sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes.
9. Watch the cookies closely and remove when the bottom barely starts to brown even if they don't look completely done (they cook more as they cool). I burned a few cookies by not watching them - they look underdone and 30-60 seconds later they are burned! (TIP: I also found cooking smaller batches - like 6 on a tray worked the best)
10. Remove and allow to cool completely.