Chocolate chip peanut butter cookies (gluten free, dairy free)

Chocolate chips and peanut butter - yum! Combine them in a cookie and you're looking pretty good, I reckon.

This recipe is gluten-free and dairy-free, while being sweet enough to keep any kid (or husband) happy!


Yumminess! If I don't bag and freeze most of these right away, they won't last long! Our kids are exceedingly greedy.


I just doubled this fantastic recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate chip peanut butter cookies I found in the New Zealand Healthy Food magazine.

NOTE: If you're not familiar with cooking dairy-free, and are doing so for someone else, check that the chocolate chips you use don't have any dairy ingredients in them - most brands do, and you may have to shop carefully.

Chocolate chip peanut butter cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups peanut butter
  
• 2 free range eggs (from our chookies)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  
• 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
  
• 170 g (or whatever you want to add) of dark chocolate chips.

Lined up and ready for the oven.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
   
2. Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips.
   
3. Stir well, until everything is combined, then add the chocolate chips and mix them through thoroughly.
   
4. Line several baking trays with baking paper. Scoop teaspoon-sized scoopfuls of the mixture into balls, and place on the tray about 4 cms / 2 inches apart (they do spread).
   
5. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until firm and lightly browned on top. Rest for ten minutes until cook enough to move to a rack for further cooling.
   
6. Makes 75-80 cookies - enough for the greediest kids! (This recipe can easily be halved).
   
7. Cookies can be frozen into portions for weekly lunchbox happiness :-)
   

Besides doubling the recipe, I also added a few more chocolate chips - I used "Pams" brand dark chocolate chips - Pams is a Kiwi home brand that is cheap and good quality.

The cookies were quick to make up, and doubling the recipe resulted in nearly 80 kiddie-sized cookies which will keep our two bottomless pits (a.k.a children) very happy for a wee while!

Omitting the baking soda as I usually do made the cookies that bit tastier, as sometimes baking soda can create a bitter aftertaste in baked goods.

I also just used plain old sanitarium peanut paste instead of the specified "no-added-salt, no-added-sugar" peanut butter - goodness knows where you'd get that from in our country town, or how much it would cost!

Recipes like this work out very economical for lunchbox treats. We'll be freezing the cookies into bags of twenty - that way, they'll last for a few weeks, as well as giving us something to have on hand for unexpected guests.

Have a lovely day!