Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

This is not really a recipe, it's more like alchemy.


Taking raw ingredients, combining them just so, and having them almost magically convert into something amazing! I'm not to sure how the magic works, every time I make them I'm sure I'm missing an important bit.. but they just work. Every time.

Beautiful Celia, from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, sent me this recipe. She had posted a yummy 'normal' cookie recipe on her blog, then kindly sent me a gluten free alternative. What a sweetie to think of us InTolerants like that! Here is the link to her original post:
http://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/03/23/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/

This has simply got to be the easiest recipe ever. Only a few ingredients that you have in your pantry anyway, only one bowl, not much mixing or stirring, and only 15minutes away from yummy deliciousness. Win win. In fact, these are so easy that littlej is now the designated PBcookie maker as they are almost an insult to cooking. Remember I told you they are not cooking, they're magic.

Here are the ingredients for 2 dozen decent sized cookies:

1 cup of peanut butter
1 cup of packed brown sugar
1 cup of chocolate chips - I use dark chocolate to be lactose free
1 egg
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of vanilla essence

Now Celia recommends Sanitarium natural peanut butter, but this week Kraft was on special for only $2, so this is what we used.

Mix everything together, adding the chocolate last. That's it. Nothing else. Told you it was magic didn't I?

Place a heaped tablespoon of mixture in nice little balls on a baking paper covered cookie sheet. Allow a couple of centimetres between each for spreading.

Put in the oven at 175* for 10-12 minutes and wait for the magic to happen. The cookies will spread out and puff up. They will turn a lovely golden brown, but watch them carefully as they can burn easily. Once you pull these out of the oven they will still be really soft, almost squidgy- but they will harden up nicely when they cool down.

Are you sure these don't have any flour in them, even gfree flour? They look like they do, they taste like they do, no one will believe that they don't. See what I mean by magic?

They also magically disappear.

Now these are great still warm from the oven -after they've set, fantastic for a snack or with a cup of tea, but absolutely amazing for dessert as ice cream sandwiches! We put a big scoop of vanilla icecream between 2 cookies (I think chocolate icecream would be good too) and served them to guests. They had no idea that they were gluten free, or that this was the first time I'd ever made this recipe. They just knew that they were yummy, and kind of magic. The children were magically quiet for about 10 minutes, and smiles magically appeared on the grown ups faces, and everyone was happy. That's a magic moment worth repeating for sure.

Thanks Celia.

So Readers, do you have a magic recipe?