Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello, friends!  A lot’s been going on over here.

Firstly, I got contacts.  For my eyes.  I’d been avoiding it for awhile, but the necessity of fixing my terrible vision made itself clear last week when, during a game of pick up field hockey on some multi-purpose turf fields, I yelled over to a guy on the sidelines, ostensibly waiting his turn to join the game — “Oh, hey, do you want to sub in?”

Which really would have been fine and rather accommodating, except for the fact that, upon closer inspection, the guy turned out to be a 14-year-old boy in a baseball uniform waiting for his mother to come pick him up, looking at me like I’d just sprouted another head.  Oops.

Contacts!  Fine.

The second thing that happened this week was the official one-year anniversary of my cross-country move to SF.  One whole year!  A year ago, I was packing up all of my things and eating oreo cake and taking a nervous flight, and then unpacking all of my things in a new and small and lovely apartment.  With a boy!  I mean, whoa.  The whole living-with-a-boy reality was hard to grasp at first, but it set in firmly that first morning in our new place, when I abruptly discovered that we were out of toilet paper.  Who doesn’t buy extra rolls of toilet paper?!?

Boys, that’s who.

I learned that lesson quickly, and Ben and I haven’t had any (fine, many) issues (toilet paper-related or otherwise) since.  It turns out that this boy is an expert pasta maker, a skilled note-leaver/cartoon draw-er, the dapperest of dance partners, and an enthusiastic helper in the effort to ration our newly acquired boxes of Girl Scout cookies.  A good man, clearly.

Thirdly, this week was K.Gro’s birthday!  For those that don’t know her, K.Gro is special. She is a bff/cousin extraordinaire and a recent inductee into the ranks of the gluten-intolerant. Happy gluten-free birthday, K.Gro!  Naturally, I thought some cookies were in order.  They’re my first foray into gluten-free baking and I have to say, all gluten aside, these are good.  Their texture is perfection: crispy-shelled and soft-and-chewy-crumbed.  Flavor-wise, these are deep and full of chocolate – not quite as peanut buttery as I’d prefer, but I’m the kind of person who’d prefer everything to taste more like peanut butter, so that should come with a grain of (sea) salt.  Which is also essential to the recipe.

So tell me — have you tried gluten-free baking yet?  What are the tricks of the gluten-free trade?  Leave word in the comments — inquiring (and cookie/cake/bread-loving) minds want to know!

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Averie Cooks

I love how short the ingredient list is for these bad boys.  But no butter?  No flour?  What’s happening to the world?

…I know.  Just go with it.  The world is a crazy place.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup peanut butter (I tried the recipe with both smooth and chunky — I prefer the texture of smooth in these cookies)
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, roughly chopped

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the peanut butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth and no longer grainy, 2-3 minutes.  Next, beat in the baking soda.  Then mix in the chopped chocolate, just until combined.  The dough should be clumpy but also crumbly in the bottom of the bowl.  It will feel quite oily to the touch.

Scoop the dough into well-packed balls (about 2 tablespoons large – I used a 1.5-inch ice cream scoop), and place them on the baking sheet about 2-inches apart (you’ll get about 8 balls on one baking sheet – we’ll need to bake them in batches).  If the dough balls start to crumble, just use your fingers to pack them back together.  Press the tops of the unbaked dough balls to gently flatten.

Bake cookies 8-10 minutes, until the bottom edges have browned but the cookies still feel quite soft on top.  Allow to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.  Repeat the process with the rest of the dough.

Enjoy cookies warm or at room temperature with a very tall glass of cold milk (or almond milk, if you’re feeling vegan).

Makes 18-20 cookies.