Recipe: Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

I am not a great cook, or baker, and certainly not that adventurous in the kitchen, as my blog readers know! But when I find a good recipe, an easy recipe, I will use it over and over again, and share it with everyone that will listen! These peanut butter cookies are so easy it is crazy, and they are so delicious! I make them for the Annual Boulder County Celiacs cookie exchange because we bring several dozen cookies each, and these are nice and easy to make.

The ingredients are very easy to remember, so much so that they are dubbed “cuppa cuppa egg” by many people. You need:

• 1 Cup of Peanut butter
• 1 Cup of Sugar
• 1 Egg
• (1 Hershey Kiss per cookie)

I usually make these in big batches. Three cups of peanut butter, three cups of sugar, and three eggs, makes enough batter for about 4 dozen cookies (2 cookies sheets of 24 cookies).

They don’t run when you bake them, so you can place the cookies pretty close to each other and get a lot of them on one cookie sheet. You have to get your hands dirty here, but luckily when you mix the ingredients well (using just a spoon is fine) it won’t stick to your hands too badly. Roll the dough in to balls about 1 inch in diameter or the size of a small ping-pong ball, and place them on the lightly greased cookie sheet (I use spray Pam). If you have a Silpat that would would great, and if you don’t know what that is check it out! I only have one, and I make two cookie sheets at a time, so I don’t use it for these cookies.

Next place a thumb print in to the top of the cookie, which is where the Hershey’s Kiss will later go. Since the cookies don’t spread out as they bake, be aware of the shape the outside of the dough makes as you make the thumbprint. If the dough cracks, then the cookie will be cracked, and will be more likely to fall apart when it cools. It is best to make these slightly smaller, and make the thumbprint more shallow, so as not to crack the dough and cause the cookie to later fall apart.  Bake cookies for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, pull them out, top each cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss, and put back in the oven for another 5 minutes (this will not melt the Hershey’s Kiss, but will set them to the cookie). Allow them to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes for trying to move them to cooling rack. If you want to try something different, top the cookies with a pecan, some other candy, or wait for the cookies to cool and with jelly!

I have no idea who came up with this recipe first, so I don’t know who to credit with the information. I know I have heard this recipe from coworkers and friends, people who aren’t gluten-free and just like how easy it is. I have seen a lot of versions of this cookie, gluten-free versions, that call for gluten-free flour and other stuff. Why do all of that extra work? These are easy and taste great! They are super sweet and rich, so you can’t eat too many! Enjoy!