This is an easy recipe for gluten free peanut butter cookies, with chocolate chips. This post includes tips for baking these at high altitude.
And if you want perfect peanut butter cookies every time, this post includes several tips (including what kind of cookie sheet / baking sheet to use). (Updated November 2021.)
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We all need cookies sometimes. And a soft peanut butter cookie is irresistible. Am I right? So when I saw this recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies on Shockingly Delicious, I headed to the kitchen. Especially when I decided to make them as gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
Cookies are generally not considered a healthy food. But flourless peanut butter cookies come pretty darn close, since they make a perfect gluten-free treat.
Is Peanut Butter Healthy?
Peanut butter offers heart-healthy fats, and is loaded with protein for vegetarians and vegans. It also boasts decent protein, B vitamin niacin, iron, potassium, and vitamin E.
But keep in mind that most of peanut butters' calories come from fat. It's primarily monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, but it's still a calorie dense food. Moderation is the key.
How to identify the healthiest peanut butters:
- The best peanut butters contain only peanuts. Steer away from peanut butters with added sugar and / or salt.
- Stay away also from palm oil as an additive. It's often added by manufactures to a) keep the peanut butter oil from separating out, and b) a filler to improve their margins. Palm oil has questionable nutrition, and has a negative impact on the environment.
- Make your own peanut butter, if you want to make sure there aren't additives. All you need is a food processor and peanuts. If you must add some sugar, go with a little honey instead of granulated sugar.
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Tips for Success in Making Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
Use a creamy peanut butter, not chunky, that has only one ingredient: peanuts.
Either plain or vanilla Greek yogurt is fine. Since the amount of yogurt is small, no adjustments in the vanilla extract need to be made in the recipe.
Any kind of chocolate chips works here, whether milk chocolate, semi-sweet or dark chocolate. It's personal choice.
I top many cookies with Maldon Sea Salt Flakes as the flakes stay on the cookies much better than kosher salt or coarse sea salts.
Technique
I recommend weighing the cookie dough balls before arranging them on the cookie sheet. This is the best way of ensuring evenly baked cookies.
Best Equipment for Baking Cookies
Be sure to use a cookie sheet, not a baking sheet.
The terms baking sheets and cookie sheets are often used interchangeably, but they're not the same.
Baking sheets have 4 raised rolled edges, making them ideal for roasting veggies, jelly-roll cakes, and sheet pan dinners. The uniformity of the raised edges also helps prevent warping.
Cookie sheets, on the other hand, have only 1 raised edge, used as a handle of sorts for sliding the sheet into and out of the oven. This open sheet design provides several benefits you might not be aware of:
- Slipping the cookies from the pan onto a cooling rack is much easier than with a rimmed baking pan.
- Eliminating 3 of the raised edges frees up more space for more cookies.
- A flat sheet without edges provides increased air circulation. This promotes evenly baked cookies.
So next time you bake a batch of cookies, reach for a cookie sheet instead of a baking sheet! You won't be sorry.
Baking Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies at High Altitude
Typically, cookies don't need any adjustments when converting a sea level recipe to baking it at high altitude. But we live above Lake Tahoe at 7100 feet, and I like moist cookies. So sometimes I make a few easy changes.
Add a little moisture. At high altitude, for a soft chewy cookie, add 2 tablespoons of plain or vanilla Greek yogurt to the batter.
Reduce the amount of sugar. Sugar becomes more concentrated at high altitudes due to the increased evaporation of liquids. For these peanut butter cookies, I cut the sugar back by one-quarter.
Gluten - Free Cookies
Many peanut butter cookies include all-purpose flour in the list of ingredients. This version doesn't have any flour at all, making them naturally gluten-free.
Another way to make a gluten-free cookies, beside of course using gluten-free flour, is to use chickpea flour. Here's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies with chickpea flour!
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Easy Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (High Altitude Baking)
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter, ideally a kind that doesn't include sugar, salt or palm oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ + ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons vanilla Greek yogurt optional, only for baking at high altitude
- ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 2 teaspoons Maldon's Sea Salt Flakes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. If you only have 1 cookie sheet, just line one. (With one cookie sheet, you'll need to take a break between batches to allow the baked cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes.)
- Using a hand-held mixer, whip together the egg, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla extract, baking soda and Greek yogurt in a medium sized bowl.
- Fold in the chocolate chips using a rubber spatula.
- Weigh a 1 ounce lump of cookie dough, and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough, and arrange on the 2 cookie sheets separating them 2 inches apart from each other. Gently roll each one into a ball. See the Tips for why is a good idea to weigh your cookies! If you don't plan to weigh the cookies, alternatively use a small ice cream scoop.
- Gently press down on each cookie with a fork. Re-mold any edges that crack. Lightly sprinkle with Maldon's Salt Flakes or very coarse salt.
- Slide one cookie sheet into the oven and bake for 13 minutes. Remove and slide in the second cookie sheet for 13 minutes.
- The cookies will be very soft when you pull them from the oven. Place the hot cookie sheet on a cooling rack. After 5 minutes, remove the cookie sheet from the cooking rack, and gently slide the cookies onto the rack with the parchment paper. Repeat with the second batch of cookies.
- The cookies will remain soft enough to slightly fall apart until they fully cool. At that point, they are the perfect soft cookie that holds together very well. Store in a plastic container or plastic bag that seals shut.
Notes
Tips for Success in Making Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Use a type of peanut butter that doesn't include sugar, palm oil or added salt. It should just be peanuts. And the peanut butter should be creamy, not chunky. The amount of yogurt is small enough that it doesn't matter if you use Greek yogurt or regular. I used Siggi's strained (Greek) yogurt. Feel free to use plain or vanilla flavored. I always weigh my cookie dough before arranging the cookies on the cookie sheet. A trick I learned from Alice Medrich years ago in culinary school, this is another way of ensuring evenly baked cookies. Any kind of chocolate chips works here, and many of you may prefer milk chocolate chips with the peanut butter. It's all good, but I admit I prefer Guittard Chocolate Chips over others. I like to top cookies like this with Maldon Sea Salt Flakes as they stay on the cookies much better than kosher salt or other coarse salts.Pro-Tip: The Difference Between Baking Sheets and Cookie Sheets
The terms baking sheets and cookie sheets are often used interchangeably, but they're not the same. Baking sheets have 4 raised rolled edges, making them ideal for roasting veggies, jelly-roll cakes, and sheet pan dinners. The uniformity of the raised edges also helps prevent warping.
Cookie sheets have only 1 raised edge, used as a handle of sorts for sliding the sheet into and out of the oven. This open sheet design provides several benefits you might not be aware of:
- Slipping the cookies from the pan onto a cooling rack is much easier than with a rimmed baking pan.
- Eliminating 3 of the raised edges frees up more space for more cookies.
- A flat sheet without edges provides increased air circulation. This promotes evenly baked cookies.
So next time you bake a batch of cookies, reach for a cookie sheet instead of a baking sheet! You won't be sorry.
Nutrition
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