Day: December 20, 2024

Peanut Butter Cookies: Old School Beauties

Lots of families make peanut butter cookies for Christmas so I decided to repost my recipe. Guys especially love them! Making a batch today at a friend’s house. There are lots of gf recipes out there but mostly they are not like what i grew up eating. And I heard about recipes for three ingredient traditional peanut butter cookies. I wanted something a bit more actual cookie texture (think less greasy) and with less sugar than the versions I have come across. So, I decided to play with the proportions plus I wanted to add some gf flour. I cut the sugar by one fourth and dumped in a small amount of flour. To make sure my results weren’t like a brick I added some baking powder and to keep them from being incredibly crumbly messes I tossed in a touch of xanthan gum. The resulting dough was still a tad crumbly but when you scrunch up about a tablespoon with your fingers it forms a ball that can be flattened with a fork dipped in granulated sugar in the traditional cross hatch of all great peanut butter cookies.

The results: simple but tasty = peanut butter heaven. I must advise that I used chunky peanut butter. I don’t much care for creamy peanut butter, so I try not to have to buy it for recipes. So, I chunked it and my somewhat picky eater who doesn’t like chunky peanut butter was in love with these beauties. I am guessing it would work with creamy. Let me know how they turn out if you make them with a creamy peanut butter.

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To review, significantly lower in sugar than most three ingredient recipes, great flavor and texture and simple to make. Bonus: they still remind me of the peanut butter cookies of my childhood…which were full of all purpose flour! I used my typical flour blend; King Arthur gf blend but I am sure Better Batter or Cup for Cup will work. If your blend has gum in it no additional gum is needed so leave that quarter teaspoon out.

Note: if you love the salty cookie concept, sprinkle with coarse sea salt before baking, I now do that. Either sweet or salty they are somewhat addictive, especially fantastic with a glass of cold milk.

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Chunky Peanut Butter cookies

1 cup chunky peanut butter
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg (room temp)
½ cup gf flour blend (I used King Arthur basic gf blend)
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. xanthan gum

¼ cup sugar for fork action
Coarse sea salt (optional)

Directions: Mix first six ingredients well in stand mixer. Form into balls by squeezing in hand. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, press with fork dipped into sugar. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt if desired.

Bake at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes. Watch carefully – they burn easily. Let stand one minute before lifting off with pancake turner to a cooling rack. Eat and enjoy these gems of cookies…you will be taken back to your childhood.

 

Sugar Cut Out Cookies… My Best Ever!

I have to say that sugar cookies are difficult to make out of gf flour; they have to be sturdy enough when rolled out that you can handle them and get them to the baking sheet and still taste delicate and delicious. I had trouble finding a great recipe; not terrible but just not the best. A few years ago, I tried a totally different tack; I used my favorite Betty Croker cookie cookbook recipe that is normally made with all-purpose flour and just subbed in 1 for 1 GF flour; I used Bob’s Redmill. Exact same amount. They were a bit fragile in the cut-out process, but I was able to do it and the flavor and texture is superior in my opinion. Making a batch this afternoon with friends!

Notes: I added lemon extract to give a bit more flavor and I sprinkled them with colored sugar. Do suggest you sprinkle as you make and not get the baking sheet coated in colored sugar as it burns and can have a negative flavor impact as well as causing cookie edges to burn. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for about 3 minutes so they are a bit firmed up and be gentle in that moving process to the cooling rack.

I kinda got these too brown; there was a lot of stray colored sugar on the baking sheet and I think 400 degrees was just too hot; I tend to generally lower the oven 20-30 degrees to keep things from over baking.

Angie’s GF Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter or other solid butter substitute at room temp but not squishy

1 cup granulated sugar

2 room temp eggs, large

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4-1/2 tsp. lemon extract (or orange or more vanilla)

2 1/2 cups 1 for 1 GF flour mixture (I used Bob’s Redmill)

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

Directions: Put butter and sugar in stand mixer bowl, Beat until very smooth and light. You might want to stop a couple of times to scrape the bowl sides to help it blend. Add eggs one at a time, beating until blended in. Add extracts. Mix the flour and dry ingredients in a small pour spout bowl. Add to dough mixture in bowl, at slowest speed. Blend until smooth. Chill 1-3 hours. Use 1/4 of the dough at a time to roll out on lightly floured bread board. Roll to 1/8-1/4 inch thick. Use more flour to help it to not stick to rolling pin. I actually used a thin flat metal pancake turner/spatula to shove under th dough edges to release the dough from the board as it kept sticking. Too much flour will make them tough so the pancake turner helped keep me from excessive flouring. Cut with your favorite cookie cutters. Use that same turner to move them to the baking sheet. I strongly urge that you decorate before placing on an ungreased cookie sheet. Our favorites are green and red decorating sugar for much of the cookies, a blue for stars, and some tiny colored decorating balls on the Christmas trees. We love Christmas pigs and fish as well as the traditional trees and stars. Don’t try any super fancy cutouts; this dough is not so good for fancy shapes. Narrow necks, complex curves etc are not do-able.

As you are cutting them out get the oven ready. Put oven shelves on two middle racks. Heat oven to 380 degrees (the 400 degrees of the original recipe seems too hot). Leave 1 to 1.5 inches between cookies. Bake 6-9 inches. I like to put all the small cutouts on one sheet and the bigger ones on its own baking sheet as the small ones will bake a bit faster. Watch them closely; the outer cookies bake faster and smaller ones faster too. Pull out when the edges are a light brown. let stand on sheet for 3-5 minutes. Gently move each cookie to a cooling rack using that flat metal spatula. Best consumed when they are fully cooled; warm they don’t have the correct texture.

I did only make a half recipe last year; with 6 tbsp. of butter. as I just didn’t have the audience to eat a whole batch of them. I have half the dough wrapped tightly and stored in the fridge for making fresh next week. I save all the scraps and roll them out as the last roll out of dough. More than 2 roll outs will make that dough tough and dry, so some scraps end up in the trash as they get too reworked. Enjoy these cookies; they are definitely worth the effort and are a blast from my Christmases before my diagnosis of celiac disease.