Guilt-Free, Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

MAKES 1 DOZEN

These melt-in-your-mouth, soft, chewy peanut butter cookies will have you hooked from the first bite. A perennial favorite in our house, this recipe is often doubled because we love it so much. It’s a wholesome treat that appeals to adults and children alike. We offer these cookies to our son and his friends as an after-school snack. Sometimes we make ice cream sandwiches with them, putting a small scoop of vanilla or chocolate vegan ice cream in between two cookies. Yum!

1¼ cups brown rice flour

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. Himalayan pink salt

½ cup organic creamy peanut butter

½ cup maple syrup

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp. vanilla extract

  1     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a medium-size baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2     In a medium bowl, stir the flour, baking soda, and salt together.

  3     In a separate bowl stir together the peanut butter, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla extract. Make sure your peanut butter is soft and almost runny to start. If it’s not, warm it up in a pan first until it softens up.

  4     Pour the flour mixture over the peanut butter mixture and stir until barely combined. It will still look a bit dusty. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes, and then give it one more quick stir.

  5     Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Gently press down on each one with the back of a fork to get a crisscross effect. If your fork sticks to the dough, just run it under hot water before each crisscross.

  6     Bake for 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the baking sheet.

If you do not have brown rice flour, you can substitute whole-wheat, spelt, and/or oat flour. All will work in this recipe. Just remember that if you use whole-wheat or spelt, the cookies will not be gluten free.