Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Blossoms

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

I slacked off on the baking this year and have a roll of Pillsbury sugar cookies dough in my fridge for the kids to bake for Santa tomorrow. #slacker. But, as I meandered through Aldi today for some last minute shopping, I saw the bag of Hershey Kisses and began craving peanut butter blossoms. Alas, the standard recipe includes flour and I want to be able to enjoy a cookie. I bought the kisses anyway.

Once I got home, it dawned on me. I can just make the gluten-free peanut butter cookie recipe I know and love and turn it into blossoms. *facepalm* It was so obvious, it really shouldn’t have taken me two hours to figure out.

My kids were excited to get started and I immediately put Jessie to work unwrapping the kisses (the perfect gig for a 4 year old) while Josiah and I made the dough. Here is what you need:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• ½ cup granulated sugar, plus extra for garnish
• ½ cup brown sugar,
• 1 large egg
• ¼ tsp table salt
• 1 capful ( about 1 tsp or so) pure vanilla extract
• Hershey’s Kisses ( about 24)
• Red and Green Food Coloring ( optional, for Christmas)

In a mixing bowl, mix up the peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg, salt and vanilla.

My Kitchenaid mixer does this so fast, the mix is ready in less than 5 minutes.

Pack the dough together into a ball and wrap in saran or place in a ziploc bag. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

Tonight, my kids were impatient, so we put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. This made the cookies a bit more crumbly than normal, but still delicious.

The dough should come together into a ball pretty easily, though it will have that greasy, peanut butter feel.

Shortly before pulling the dough out of the fridge ( or freezer), put some sugar in a bowl to use as garnish. 

Since it is Christmas, I actually used some red food coloring to color my sugar, since I already had some green decorating sugar on hand. Just had a few drops of coloring to the sugar bowl and mix. You will have colored sugar in no time.

Cooking hack: A few drops of food coloring can instantly turn regular white sugar into colored decorating sugar.

Remove the dough and roll into smaller round balls ( about 1 inch or so).

Heat your oven to 350

Roll the balls in the granulated sugar and place on a non-stick baking sheet, or a baking sheet lined with parchment. 

You are going to want to lightly press down on the dough with your thumb to flatten the cookies. They won’t spread much during baking. However, be gentle, the dough will crumble easily.

Pop in the oven for about 7-8 minutes until the bottoms are lightly brown.

They may seem a little “undone” when they come out. That is okay. After a moment or two of cooling the cookies will come together a bit more and be soft. If you overcook, they will get crunchy fast.

As soon as you remove the cookies from the oven, put one unwrapped Hershey kiss in the center of each and let cool for a few moments. 

That’s all there is to it! I love that these gluten-free peanut butter blossoms equire little prep time and no fancy ingredients. So easy!

What is your favorite cookie recipe? Let me know in the comments and feel free to share this recipe to help out other gluten-free cookie lovers, as well!

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