Peanut Butter Cookies {gluten & lactose-free}

Last year was my first year at a new company, and to share the holiday spirit I decided to do a "12 days of cookies" at work. While several 5 am wake-up calls left me questioning my sanity, these peanut butter cookies from Ovenly were a spectacular success. What drew me to them originally was their minimal ingredient list - 5 ingredients, including vanilla and salt! - and their suitability for two good friends who can't eat gluten or lactose. They also happen to be the perfect peanut butter cookies: dense yet tender, richly peanut butter-y, chewy inside, with exactly the right amount of crispness on the exterior. Ovenly's peanut butter cookies were so highly-praised (and so ludicrously simple to make) that I made them again this year for my 2nd annual "12 days of cookies".

As someone whose blog contains a hefty percentage of baked goods, I'm stunned to realize I haven't posted anything about Ovenly yet. I did suggest their unusual and fantastic mustard spice cookies for an idea post, but the tragic ginger beef satay won instead. The unusual mustard spice cookie isn't alone within the Ovenly pages for its perfect pairing of savory and sweet flavors; there's a bourbon chocolate chip cookie with tarragon, boozy fig blondies, blue cheese apple pie with toasted walnuts, and strawberry basil loaf, just to name a few. So where does this peanut butter cookie derive it's signature salty-sweet Ovenly taste? A few grains of coarse sea salt are sprinkled over the slightly sweet cookies before baking, and the result is magical.

There are only a couple notes to make about this recipe. Agatha and Erin recommend using Skippy as the best brand for these cookies, because they've found the cookies retain their shape best with it. I've made these cookies with Skippy, Jason's all-natural peanut butter, TJ's peanut butter, and Jif all-natural peanut butter. Honestly I couldn't really tell the difference in shape between brands or all-natural vs not. What's more important to achieving the lofted domes of peanut butter goodness is chilling the dough. This time, I scooped my dough and refrigerated the balls overnight, which made a huge difference to the cookie shape: see the flatter cookies below from when I didn't pre-chill compared to the loftier ones above (also notice the incredible difference in cell phone camera quality). If you want your cookies to have striations along the top of the domed cookie like in the cookbook photo, Smitten Kitchen recommends a short freeze before forming the dough balls - let it chill for 15 minutes in the bowl, stirring after 8 minutes to help it chill evenly. Then scoop out your cookies and you should get prettier tops than mine (...I didn't have enough space in my freezer for a whole bowl of cookie dough). As with Wednesday's chocolate sugar cookies, these peanut butter cookies come with the option of baking a small or large size. If you're baking for a crowd, go small, but for yourself.... the large-sized ones are better.

I baked my small cookies exactly 15 minutes and they were already golden along the edges and bottom. Personally I wouldn't cook them for the 16-18 minutes listed in the recipe, I think they'd be overcooked. But I prefer soft cookies, so make a test batch or two, let them cool, and see which you prefer.

Peanut Butter Cookies {gluten & lactose-free}

The perfect peanut butter cookie just happens to be super easy to make and also gluten & lactose-free.

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 large or 24 small cookies

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups (393 g) light brown sugar packed
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ¾ cups smooth peanut butter roughly 1-16oz jar
• Coarse-grained sea salt

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment.
• Whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until well-incorporated (by hand in a medium bowl or in a stand mixer on medium). Whisk in the vanilla extract. Fold in the peanut butter with a spatula until the cookie dough is smooth and the peanut butter is fully incorporated*. The dough will be just a little softer than Play-Doh.
• For the large cookies, scoop the dough into 2-inch (2 - 2 ¼ ounce) balls. For the small cookies, scoop the dough into heaping tablespoons. Place on the parchment-lined sheet, and freeze for 15 minutes before baking (or cover and store overnight in the refrigerator).
• Sprinkle each dough ball with a few grains of the coarse sea salt just prior to baking. Turning the sheet pan halfway through baking, bake the large cookies for 20 minutes and the small cookies for 15 minutes. When done, the cookies will be lightly golden and slightly cracked on top. Keep a careful eye on these, they move quickly past perfect to overbaked.
• Cool completely on a wire rack, then serve.

Notes

*This step is trickier if you are using all-natural peanut butter and the oil has separated, because the drier peanut butter won't mix in as well. First whisk or beat your separated peanut butter until it's smooth, then add to the sugar-egg-vanilla bowl.

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