Recipe: Gluten-free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, gluten-free peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. How’s that for a mouth full?

And trust me, if you had a plate of these cookies, your mouth would be full, for days, because they’re so good, I can’t put them down and I’m allergic to peanut butter! (talk about a bad combination..)

I’m not sure what it is, I suppose the free time that comes with the lack of employment, but I haven’t stopped baking this weekend. First there was oatmeal. Then, cornbread. A failed attempt at gluten-free focaccia. And finally? These cookies. (.. and a peaches and cream baked oatmeal in the oven, as I type)

In fact, between the boredom, the baking and Trevor’s voracious appetite, I’ve been at the grocery store a lot. Yesterday, my favorite cashier mentioned that I might want to join in on their sweepstakes game since my daily trips would warrant a lot of game pieces. Today, I was teased for shopping every day and only leaving with five things in my cart. Apparently it’s not normal to survive on a diet of oatmeal, watermelon and the occasional cup of Chobani. (I finally got bit by that greek yogurt bug. Why did I hold out this long?)

With the stress of installing a new vanity and doing the plumbing ourselves, I thought that Trevor could use a treat, though. My first attempt at a reward was the focaccia but when that plan fell flat (literally), I scrounged up all the pantry items I could find and looking for a recipe that would combine them all into something sweet but free of flour.

Unfortunately for me, Trevor loves peanut butter. When there is gluten-free bread in the pantry, I can’t seem to make a jar last more than four days but with the bread-baking disaster, there was plenty of crunchy peanut butter left for these cookies. (Of course there was no baking soda, so a trip to the store was needed anyway - like I said, Albertson’s sees a lot of me.)

After doing a lot of recipe searching - I’m so particular about cookies - I stumbled upon this one from Averie Cooks. If you haven’t been introduced to this blog yet, I advise you to set aside hours because once you catch a glimpse at her light, airy photography and to-die-for recipes, you’ll never get anything done.

So with some high altitude modifications and some ingredient substitutions, this is how it turned out..

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of butter
1/3 cup of peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup stevia (you can use sugar, if you wish)
1 egg + 1 yolk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups of gluten-free Bisquick
1 cup of gluten-free old fashioned oats
3/8 tsp of baking soda
1 1/4 cup of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Chips

In her original preparation, Averie chose white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. I was looking to use ingredients already in my pantry (and to minimize the peanut butter content) so I chose to just use milk chocolate chips. You could easily substitute white chocolate, dark chocolate, dried cherries or nut pieces, instead. Also, I chose to use Bisquick but for those of you who aren’t restricted - all purpose flour will do just fine. And finally - if you’re at sea level, round your baking soda off to an even 1/2 tsp.

Directions: 

For high altitudes, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
For everyone else, preheat to only 325.

Melt the butter over medium heat on the stove, once it has melted, add in the peanut butter and stir until evenly mixed.

While this mixture is still hot, stir in the brown sugar and stevia.

You will want this mixture to come to room temperature before adding your eggs - I let it rest in the freezer while I measured out the dry ingredients.

After the mixture cools, whisk in the vanilla, one egg and one additional egg yolk. Mix until smooth.

Then, add in the oats, the bisquick, and baking soda. After thoroughly mixed, fold in the chocolate chips.

I found this blend of ingredients to produce the right texture (not too wet or too dry) but you can always follow Averie’s suggestion of adding more flour or more peanut butter, to suit.

To bake, simply roll the dough into balls - you should get about two dozen cookies from the ingredients listed above, but the recipe could easily be doubled. Place the balls of dough evenly spaced out on a cookie sheet and bake for approximately 12 minutes if you want a soft, chewy cookie. If you’re a fan of crispier cookies, I suggest leaving them in the oven for about 15, instead. For low altitudes, you may need to adjust these times by two to three minute.

(My very chewy cookies seemed to stay together better when left on the cookie sheet to cool.)

After they’ve had a chance to cool (or maybe before, if you’re inpatient like me), you will want to pour yourself a glass of cold milk and consume as many as possible before your significant other gets home. Okay, that might not be the best advice but really, they’re that good.

When Trevor bit into the first, I watched his face light up with surprise. Then he made a snarky comment like “well, maybe you don’t know how to bake gluten-free bread but you have this cookie thing down.” I was mad for a second before I realized that well, he was right, and then he proceeded to brag how the cookies could definitely win a recipe contest.

I guess you could say my baking served its purpose, he was delighted. Even if the cookies didn’t appease him later, as our bathroom pipes flooded our new floor. Twice.



So tell me, what do you like to add to your cookies? Walnuts? Peanut butter chips?