flourless peanut butter cookies

peanut butter gf cookies

I got an urgent plea this morning from my sister.  Could I tell her how to make gluten-free peanut butter cookies as she was dreaming of them.  She needed a recipe without any complicated flours, as all she had was cornflour (not cornmeal) and rice flour.  I remembered a blog by glutenfreegirl, so posted a link immediately.  I then set out to try these myself.

The recipe is very simple, calling for 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of peanut butter (smooth), 1 egg and 1 tsp of baking powder.  Those of us who are used to weighing ingredients might wonder what a cup meant, so I measured.

1 cup of the sugar I used (golden caster sugar) is 200g
1 cup of peanut butter ( I used crunchy) is 230g.  The jar I have is 454g, so just scoop half the jar full into your bowl and save mess.  I can't see that the precise amount will make any difference to the outcome, and a bit less washing up is always welcome.  If you use the kind of peanut butter that already has sugar added you may want to cut down the sugar.

Stir all the ingredients together and roll into little balls.  Roll these in sugar and place on a lined baking sheet.  I tried one tray where I left the balls round and another where I pressed the cookies lightly with my fingers to flatten.  The end results are the same.  Leave as balls if you want, but if you like pressing them, feel free to do so. (The next time I made them I just just dolloped the mix onto the baking tray with two teaspoons - less messy to do and gives a freeform biscuit that is attractive).

Cook at 180C for ten minutes.  Take the trays out and leave to set for five minutes before you move onto the cooling rack.

When cold, enjoy.  I coated some of these in a bit of melted chocolate for an extra bit of decadence.

The texture of these is very good, crisp and slightly chewy.  They are slightly too sweet for my taste, but with bitter chocolate they work very well.

swirled chocolate on bottom of cookie

These are so good I don't think I'd bother trying any other recipe - they take about a minute to mix, ten to cook, and ready to eat, still warm but getting crisp, five minutes later.  With the chocolate - a minute in the freezer sets the one you can't wait to eat.