Vegan & Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now you'll have to forgive me for posting almost the same recipe as my last post but I've developed a gluten-free version of the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and these are SO good I had to get this recipe up right away :-) Recently my husband has been suspecting gluten, or at least wheat, is possibly causing him some problems. I've been having fun adapting recipes and making gluten-free meals at dinner but I also knew I had to make those cookies gluten-free for him. I mean they JUST came into our lives!!

I am so happy with how these turned out, I suspect no one would guess these are vegan let alone gluten-free. Now I don't have a lot, or any, experience with gluten-free baking but hey - these worked! I've simply swapped the flour with a mixture of gluten-free oat flour and cornstarch here and that's all they needed. The oats give a great oatmeal cookie kind of flavour which goes wonderfully with the peanut butter and chocolate. As you can see, I've also crammed these cookies with the highest possible amount of chocolate chips that could fit in there! Of course, you can always reduce them but I'm not sure why you would want to do that - ha! ;-)

~ Recipe Notes ~

• It's essential you use certified gluten-free oats or oat flour here, regular oats are not gluten-free. 

• For the oat flour I simply made my own by blending gluten-free oats in my fab Optimum 9400 Blender. It took seconds. You can buy gluten-free oat flour but I would assume my way is a lot cheaper.

• I used regular smooth peanut butter - the type with added sugar and salt here.

• As mentioned above - there are a LOT of chocolate chips in these, if you prefer less simply halve the amount. They'll still taste great :-)

• My vegan butter, peanut butter and chocolate chips were all naturally gluten-free but of course, do check your labels.

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Yields 12 cookies

3 Tbsp vegan butter (45g)
1/3 cup smooth peanut butter (80g)
1½ Tbsp light brown sugar
1½ Tbsp white sugar
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup gluten-free oat flour (60g)
2 Tbsp cornstarch (cornflour in UK/IRE)
1/8 tsp salt
¼ tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 Tbsp water
½ cup vegan dark chocolate chips (100g)

Preheat the oven to 190C / 375F and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a small bowl whisk together the oat flour, cornstarch, salt and baking powder.

In a larger bowl beat the butter and peanut butter together until really smooth. Add the sugars and beat until light and well mixed, beat in the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture with the water and mix until it all comes together. Add the chocolate chips and mix well.

Take about a heaped tablespoon of the dough and using your hands squeeze and roll into a smooth ball then place it on the baking sheet. Repeat until all the dough is used, you should get  12 cookies. 

Using your hand, gently press down on each ball just to flatten slightly then use a potato masher to gently press down again so you get a design on top and they go a little more flat but don't over press!

Pop them into the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are just turning lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the tray for 10 minutes to firm up. Now transfer them to a wire rack to cool (or eat them while nice and warm!)

♥

Nutritional Information: per cookie (with the full amount of chocolate chips)

Calories: 139

Protein: 2.5g

Fat: 8.3g

Sat Fat: 1.3g

Fibre: 1.2g

Carbs: 8.9g

Sugar: 8.9g

Sodium: 67.7mg