Food Friday - A "KISS"

from Kris B.

This has been a busy week with many things coming to an end.  My semester and school year came to a close and the shipment of “stuff” that I kept from my parents and grandparents home in Delaware arrived here in Texas, really ending my ties to Delaware.  That has been a lot for me to deal with this week, so we decided to send you all a “KISS” - a Keep It Super Simple  recipe.  These flourless peanut butter are one of my all-time favorite cookie recipes, as well as being one that my “I don’t like chocolate in my baked goods” husband will eat.  And obviously since they are flourless, they are also gluten free.  

The simple part is that these cookies require only five ingredients - peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar, an egg, and vanilla.

(In the name of simplicity, you also get to see my "fancy" pantry storgae system.  :-))

Cookies just make me happy from start to finish.  (Well, maybe not all the way to finish if finish is getting on the scale. LOL!)  I do enjoy making them almost as much as eating them especially when the kitchen “tools” brighten up a dreary, gray, rainy day.

I love brown sugar so I will always find a way to adjust a recipe so that I can substitute some or all of the white sugar with some brown sugar.  I know that I did that with this recipe way back.  Brown sugar adds a little more moisture and a hint of molasses flavor.  Using brown sugar in this recipe yields a softer, more chewy cookie.  If you like crisp cookies, you may want to use a cup of  white sugar and omit the brown sugar.

INGREDIENTS

1 Cup Peanut Butter  (I often make my own peanut butter, but in this recipe, I use commercially prepared peanut butter works better because it contains more oil.)

1/2 Cup white sugar

1/2 Cup brown sugar

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl until completely mixed.  The dough is a little wetter and sticker than cookies made with flour.  

Use a small cookie scoop to drop cookies onto an engrossed cookie sheet, leaving two inches between them. 

Use a fork to flatten the cookies slightly.  

What is it about that criss-cross from the fork that makes peanut butter cookies “authentic”? 

Bake for 10 minutes or until the bottoms become slightly golden colored.

It doesn't get much simpler than that!  And only one bowl, one spoon and a measuring cup to wash!  (Use a half cup measure to add the sugars first and then the peanut butter and you'll only have one measuring cup to wash.  Another confession: I never measure vanilla, so no measuring spoons to wask either.  I have a pretty good sense of what a teaspoon "splash" of vanilla looks like.  And if in doubt, I err on the side of too much rather than too little.

If you want a little chocolate with your peanut butter, you can add a half a cup of chocolate chips to the dough, or remove the cookies about a minute before they are done a place a chocolate “kiss” on the top and return the cookies to the oven for the final minute.  I usually do the latter; that way everyone at my house is happy.  LOL!

from Tracey G.

This past week has been just utterly upside down for me, and Kris has had her hands full beyond belief with the end-of-the-school-year tasks and her items from Delaware arriving to her home. In our conversations on what to do for this week, we decided whatever it was, it was going to be easy-peasy to help us both out. So, since Kris was going to do a flourless recipe, thereby it being a gluten-free food, I decided I wanted to follow along those lines somehow. The idea of trying out a gluten-free baked good mix invaded my brain. Every time I'm in the grocery store, I see various gluten-free products and mixes. I've always wondered if they make the cut as far as taste etc. So, I decided to try one this week and let you know how it went and if it made the cut as decided by a 6 year old ;-) 

Kris and I had discussed brownies at one point and then that sounded good to me, lol, so I went with a gluten-free brownie mix. There were a couple to choose from, but since I pretty much exclusively use King Arthur flour, I decided their mix was the one I was going to try. 

The additional ingredients were the usual suspects, eggs, water (not pictured) and a fat - you could go dairy free and use oil in place of the butter. I wanted to use butter because I thought it would add a little extra flavor of some sort, lol. Following the package directions, I whisked together the eggs, butter and water, then stirred in the mix until well combined. 

You then spread the batter evenly into a well-greased 8x8 square baking dish - it's also stated you can use a 9"-round pan as well. 

Following the directions on the package, I baked them for 45 minutes in a 350° F oven. The toothpick test came out just as it said it would on the package, with some moist crumbs clinging, so I deemed them done and I pulled them out of the oven. 

The directions said to let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting them - so that's what I did, lol. I have to be honest, I didn't care for them at first - not that there was anything wrong texturally, that was fabulous, but they tasted a bit bitter to me. Harry however, LOVED them, lol. But, after I let them sit even a bit longer, a few hours, I felt it fair to try them again - since Harry still loved them, lol. This time around I discovered I too loved them, lol. I would most certainly make them again! If you didn't know they were gluten-free, you'd never guess. The texture was what I was curious about as to how they'd turn out, and in my opinion the texture was just right!

So, in conclusion of this experiment, lol, I would not hesitate to make these again nor would I hesitate to recommend them! :-D Happy taste-testing! 

Have a happy week, everyone!