This classic cookie gets a grain free makeover with these simple and delicious Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blossoms! Unlike more traditional recipes made with loads of butter and sugar, these peanut butter cookies are made with only six, wholesome and vegan friendly ingredients and topped off with a piece of dark chocolate.
Cookie Week – Day Five
What is Cookie Week? Inspired by Cookie Palooza over on Sally’s Baking Addiction, I’m sharing a new, gluten-free holiday cookie everyday for one full week.
So. Many. Cookies.
I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot let a single Christmas season go by without making a batch a peanut butter blossoms. I mean, I am all for any excuse to make peanut butter cookies in general.
What’s different about these gluten free peanut butter blossoms?
✔️ They’re made all in one bowl with only seven ingredients total.
✔️Not only are the gluten free, but grain free as well thanks to almond flour.
✔️Sweetened with maple syrup and studded with dark chocolate chunks – they have waaay less sugar than most traditional recipes.
Key Ingredients
- Peanut Butter: I recommend that you use creamy peanut butter and not natural peanut butter with the oil left in the jar as this will make for greasy cookies.
- Pure Maple Syrup: The maple not only helps to sweeten the cookies, but it’s stickiness helps bind everything together.
- Almond Flour: I considered making these cookies flourless but the end result usually resulted in flatter cookies. Almond flour is a great choice to keep these cookies both gluten and grain free.
- Dark Chocolate Chunks: Get a big bar of chocolate and break it up into smaller chunks. Dark chocolate helps keep these cookies lower in sugar and more on the healthy side. That being said you can absolutely opt to use Hershey kisses instead.
Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blossoms Steps
Altogether these cookies are super easy to make with very little prep involved.
- Mix together the maple syrup, peanut butter and vanilla extract.
- Add the almond flour and salt to form the dough.
- Roll into little balls before baking.
Things to Keep in Mind
- The cookies won’t spread much as they bake so you should be able to fit quite a few dough balls on your baking sheet.
- Fresh out of the oven the cookies will be quite delicate and prone to breaking. You will need to add the chocolate while the cookies are still hot though so that the two become one. Be slow and gentle when adding the chocolate chunks. If you work too fast the cookies will crack and fall apart.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet completely. Once they have fully cooled they will set and you don’t need to worry about breakage.
Gluten Free Peanut Butter Steps:
Cookie Questions
Can I use a different type of nut butter instead of peanut butter?
Yes! Feel free to sub out the peanut butter to another nut butter of your choice. Almond butter and cashew butter a good options if you’d like to make these cookies paleo friendly.
Can I use a different flour other than almond flour?
I have not yet tested these cookies using a different flour. However, if you’re up for playing around with the recipe I do have a few other peanut butter cookie recipes that you can use instead of this one here:
- Flourless Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies – Chill the dough for about an hour before baking to reduce cookie spread in the oven.
- Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies with Millet Flour – Leave out the chocolate chips and chill dough for at least one hour. Cookies will still spread some.
- Flourless Peanut Butter Oat Cookies – Leave out the chocolate chips and don’t flatten the cookies before baking.
- Flourless Monster Cookies with Coconut – Leave out the m&m’s and chocolate chips. Don’t flatten the cookies before baking.
- Nutella Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies – These are basically peanut butter thumbprint cookies filled with chocolate hazelnut spread. You can follow the recipe as is or use chocolate/ chocolate kisses instead of the nutella.
More Cookies from Cookie Week:
- Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies (Vegan Option)
- Rosemary Lemon Christmas Tree Cookies
- Gluten Free Red Velvet Cookies and
- Paleo Red Velvet Cookies
- Salted Honey Tahini Cookies (Vegan Option)
- Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blossoms (Vegan Option)
- Buttered Pecan Meltaways (Vegan Option)
Grain Free Peanut Butter Blossoms
Unlike more traditional recipes made with loads of butter and sugar, these peanut butter cookies are made with only six, paleo and vegan friendly ingredients and topped off with a piece of dark chocolate.
Ingredients
- 1 cup | 250 g creamy peanut butter (not oily peanut butter)
- 1/2 cup | 158 g maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon | 5 ml vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cup | 120 g almond flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 dark chocolate bars (ensure vegan if needed) broken up into 15-18 chunks
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°. Lightly grease or line a couple of baking sheets. Set aside.
- In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or in a stand mixer) add the peanut butter (1 cup | 250g), maple syrup (1/2 cup | 158 g) and vanilla extract (1 tsp | 5ml) and mix until well combined.
- Add the almond flour, baking soda and salt. Mix in to a thick dough.
- Scoop out about 1 heaping tablespoon of dough at a time and roll into a ball. Place each cookie dough ball a the prepared baking sheet. Leave about 2 inches of space in between each ball.
- Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 8 minutes. The cookies might look slightly underdone but that is ok!
- Press the chocolate chunks into the tops of your still warm cookies. The cookies will be delicate and prone to breaking fresh out of the oven, so be gentle and slow. Once they have fully cooled they will set and no longer break easily.
- Let the cookies finish cooling on the baking sheets and that's it. Transfer to an airtight container and keep at room temperature or in the fridge up to one week.
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