Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Don’t you just love when you experiment in the kitchen, and everything just goes right? Like SO right?! Sometimes when I play around with cookie recipes, the hubs isn’t very impressed. He says he can tell that I “healthed them up” too much. But this time it was sweet victory. Crispy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside, and a heavenly mixture of peanut butter and chocolate.

Now, these cookies are gluten free, but are definitely not fat free. We could just call them fat bomb cookies for fun. You will be using butter and creamy peanut butter in these. I sweetened them with pure cane sugar (sugar in the raw) and a little honey and used oat flour, but you cold sub any gluten free flour of your choice. I think the ‘sugar crystal’ consistency in the cane sugar served as a secret ingredient. Every bite had a little bit of sugar-sprinkle crunch that was delightful and super addicting.

You will need an electric mixer. I used my handheld mixer the whole way through. If your kids like to help you with baking, this will make them super happy because both (or all) will get amble turns with holding the mixer! No arguing allowed when baking Christmas cookies! Jesus didn’t come into the world so we could grumble and complain at each other. (Totally had to have that lecture with my children this weekend, but we’ll save that post for another day)

Now crank that Christmas music and let’s get to baking!

Ingredients-

• ½ cup butter, softened

• ½ cup (creamy) peanut butter

• ½ cup (sugar in the raw) cane sugar

• ¼ cup (or even less) honey

• ½ tsp. baking soda

• ½ tsp. baking powder

• 1 egg

• ½ tsp. vanilla

• 1 ¼ cup GF oat flour (can sub for any kind you like)

• ½ cup (or more if you prefer) dark chocolate chips

Directions-

1. Start by beating your softened (not melted) butter and peanut butter together with your hand mixer on medium speed for about 30 second or until smooth.

2. Next, add your cane sugar, honey, baking soda and baking powder and beat with the mixer until combined.

3. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined.

4. Finally, begin to beat in the flour, little by little until combined. Scrape the sides of your bowl as needed to get everything added in well.

5. Now, you get to add in your chocolate chips! I love using Bakers’ Corner large chips.

6. Cover and chill the dough for about 20 minutes, while your oven is preheating to 350 - 375 degrees (depending on how fast your ovens seem to cook- I did my first batch at 375 and then decided to do down to 350)

7. When dough has chilled and come to a good consistency, scoop your dough with your handy dandy cookie scooper, or a tea spoon will work too, onto your pan into 1 to 2 inch cookie sized blobs onto your nonstick cooking sheet.

8. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.

Tip-

Wait for just a minute before immediately scraping them off the pan, and onto your wire cooling rack. They will be so, so moist- you don’t want them to fall apart! But if they do, you can just sample those pieces… no one will ever know 😉

Final Step?

Enjoy with your family and friends… and maybe leave a few for Santa to try too!