The Ultimate Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookie

Friday (March 1) was National Peanut Butter Lovers Day and I decided to celebrate the day by making peanut butter cookies.

The first time I was craving peanut butter cookies after going gluten free I was very surprised when I checked out recipes to find a popular brand already had a recipe on the market that was naturally gluten free. It was also written right on the jar of Kraft Peanut Butter. This is a super simple recipe that is naturally gluten free, provided the peanut butter you use is gluten free. Make sure you read the label and that all ingredients are gluten free. A lot of peanut butter, especially the reduced fat ones, have added icing sugar which is not always gluten free.

I decided to make it simple and get natural or peanut only peanut butter and I have never looked back. No extra sugar added and there is so much more true peanut flavour to the natural peanut butter. It makes these cookies less sweet and more of a true peanut butter cookie. Cutting back on the amount of sugar already in the peanut butter justifies adding honey roasted peanuts to the cookies for extra crunch. These are very decadent cookies, so they only get made for special occasions, like National Peanut Butter Lovers Day and when I am craving peanut butter cookies. Also using brown sugar instead of white adds more flavour to the cookies instead of just sweet.

1 cup natural or peanut only peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 lg egg

1 cup finely chopped honey roasted peanuts

Mix all ingredients together. Using a tablespoon make 3/4 - 1 inch balls and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Using a fork press the balls down making the classic peanut butter fork tine lines in the cookie. For extra crunch, sprinkle raw sugar on top of cookie, but this is completely optional.

Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 15 minutes rotating baking sheet half way through. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for 5 - 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. For soft, chewy cookies, cookies should not be browned around the edges before removing from oven. Cookies are very soft straight out of the oven so they must cool on pan and be careful when moving to wire rack.