Flourless (Gluten-free) Peanut-Butter Cookies

At 5PM Sunday night I suddenly wanted cookies.  Luckily I booked this recipe from Serious Eats, because it was easy to mix, bake, cool, then make and serve dinner (tacos, in case you were interested) and still have time to wash dishes and enjoy a cookie or three with a cup of tea before midnight.

Only five ingredients to make these cookies!   No flour, no dairy products (unless you count the egg) and no "strange" or exotic gluten-free products contained therein.  You probably already have all the ingredients in your kitchen.

The only change I made to the ingredients was to use granulated sugar, mostly because I didn't feel like spending time chipping away at the brick (formerly known as brown sugar) in my pantry, and because the recipe author said it was okay to use it.  She also recommended using a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients, but to save a few more nanoseconds of prep time I used my trusty ol' KitchenAid instead.  The time spent cleaning the peanut butter out of the measuring cup took less time than to bake the whole batch.

I might have been a little generous with my rounded tablespoons, since I only got 20 cookies out of the batch, instead of the 24 it was supposed to.  It also took more like 12 minutes to bake (to be fair probably because of their size), and they weren't very thin and crisp.  But they are delicious!  You can't even tell they are gluten-free.   I plan to try a batch with almond butter in the near future.  If they are just as good, they will also be delicious for Passover.

Flourless (Gluten-Free) Peanut-Butter Cookies
Lightly adapted from Serious Eats
Yield: 20-24 cookies

1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In mixing bowl, combine sugar and baking soda. Add peanut butter, egg and vanilla extract. Stir on low speed for 30 seconds or until smooth.

Drop rounded tablespoons of the cookie dough about 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets.

Using the tines of a fork, gently press lightly horizontally and vertically to make the traditional crosshatch design on top of each cookie.

Cookie tops cracked a tad, but didn't affect flavor.

 Bake about 10-12 minutes, until cookies puff and settle, cookies are lightly browned and bottoms are  golden brown.

Let cookies cool on pan for 10 minutes to firm up slightly and lose a little of their puffiness. After ten minutes, transfer cookies, still on parchment, to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store cookies in airtight container at room temperature for up to four days.