Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies (gluten free)

What does a gluten free diva do when she wants a Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blossom cookie and it's 10:30 PM? She adapts a recipe to be gluten free recipe, clicks her heels, prays to the gluten free gods that the recipe will work, puts on her apron and gets baking.

I swore, after they came out of the oven and cooled off, that I would only eat one. And then I don't know what came over me. I ate a second one. This morning, when I awoke, I promised myself I wouldn't eat any today, and especially not for breakfast. I broke my promise.

I don't usually eat this many sweets within a four day period. But between the gluten free pecan pie I made for Thanksgiving and these cookies, I'm making up for lost time.

I haven't been eating a whole lot of peanut butter lately. Or dairy. Or the white shortening that comes in the blue can (the kind I'm sure I grew up on). Or refined sugar. What the heck has come over me?

Whatever it is, they are my new favorite gluten free cookies. They contain just the right amount of peanut butter, they are perfectly crisp and crunchy on the outside and delicately soft on the inside, the glittering sparkle of the sugar they were rolled in sends them right into the "eye candy" category, and the chocolate kiss on the top turns the cookie into an obvious relative of Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And in my book, there is no better combination than peanut butter and chocolate.

While I eat an almost completely gluten free AND dairy free diet, these cookies are the exception. The next time I make them, I will melt some dairy free chocolate chips (Trader Joe's are dairy free) in the last few minutes of the cookies baking, and then take the baked cookies out of the oven, make a little indentation in the middle of the top of each cookie and pour in some of the melted chocolate. It'll be more like a chocolate coin rather than a chocolate kiss, chocolate being the operative word! When I made this recipe for Peanut Butter Blossom cookies, this technique worked perfectly.

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies
adapted from a Hershey's recipe
yield: about 28 cookies

click here for printable recipe

1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup solid shortening (Spectrum, Crisco)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
2 tbsp milk (I used soymilk)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar for rolling
28 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped (I used dark chocolate kisses)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or grease your pans with vegetable spray.

Mix the ingredients, from white rice flour through the baking soda.  Set aside.

Beat the shortening and both sugars with either a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, mixing until well blended. Add egg, milk, and vanilla, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add peanut butter and beat again, scraping one more time.


Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop, portion out the dough and place on cookie sheet.  Roll each amount of dough into a ball, roll in sugar and return it to the cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned. As soon as the cookies have been removed from the oven (do this quickly before the cookies begin to harden), place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each one, pressing down very gently to firmly implant it into the cookie. Immediately remove the cookies to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. As with most gluten free baked goods, these cookies will benefit from allowing to cool for at least an hour before eating. And if you put them in the frig to chill overnight, they'll be perfect the next morning. But not for breakfast (do as I say, not as I do!)!