If you know anything about my family, it’s that we love chocolate. Our second favorite thing is peanut butter. Peanut butter cookies, peanut butter pie, peanut butter cups, peanut butter bars, peanut butter balls. Now if I’m being honest, most of these are our favorites because it’s peanut butter with chocolate. But nonetheless, we still love a good peanut butter food item. The next best thing behind peanut butter and chocolate? Peanut Butter and Jelly (or Jam!). My Vegan Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies are a great, easy recipe to make for that peanut butter lover in the house and the touches of sea salt on each one really emphasizes the flavors in this cookie (you get that sweet & salty irresistability). Better yet, I have added an optional but highly suggested Jelly Sandwich Filling if you have a desire for the nostalgia of those PB & J’s you grew up with.
Growing up, I used to be a little bit grossed out by my PB & J sandwiches that may have been packed by my loving mother (no offense, Mom, I appreciate all the things you did for us as kids, including keeping us fed!) but it was messy and for some reason I was uncomfortable with my lunch being unrefrigerated for so many hours (and why was it always smashed, too many heavy textbooks I guess, ha!). But now, I sometimes get a hankering for a PB & J, especially because I can make a grown up one with some freshly. baked sourdough and homemade jam (the local strawberries and peaches grown here are the best I’ve ever had and deserve to be jam). Also, one of my favorite snacks while I’m busy in the kitchen is ants on a log (sometimes raisins, sometimes chocolate chips, and when I’m feeling like a crunchy girl, it’s my famous granola) but that peanut butter on there is what makes it so, so satisfying (and filling!)
This recipe uses simple ingredients, and many you might already have around the house. Gluten free vegan peanut butter cookies are always a hot item when I sell them at the markets and it’s like moths to a flame when I turn them into sandwich cookies. Have a peanut allergy in the family? Although I haven’t tried it, you should be able to sub out the peanut butter for sunflower seed butter with no issue, follow the recipe otherwise (omitting the peanut butter powder!).
Vegan Gluten Free Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Cookie
Ingredients
Vegan Peanut Butter Cookie Dough
- 280 g peanut butter, room temperature if possible (I use Kirkland Organic Creamy Peanut Butter)
- 300 g maple syrup
- 1 Tbsp baking soda
- 1½ tsp pink salt
- 300 g almond flour
- 24 g oat flour
- maldon flaky salt (to top each cookie)
Sugar Coating (to roll dough in)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter powder, optional (I use PB Fit)
- 200 g cane sugar
- ¼ tsp pink salt
Jelly Sandwich Filling (for peanut butter sandwich cookies)
- 100 g plant butter (I use Natural Grocers Plant Butter)
- 400 g powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp pink salt
- 25 g jam or jelly of choice (I like strawberry but use what you have or would prefer! Grape or raspberry jam would be nice too!)
Instructions
- Line a sheet pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat (silpat).
- Make your sugar coating so it’s ready for you when your cookies are ready to scoop. In a small bowl, combine your peanut butter powder (if using), cane sugar, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl or a stand mixer, combine your wet ingredients: the peanut butter and maple syrup. With your stand mixers paddle or your electric mixer, cream the peanut butter with the maple syrup until the peanut butter mixture is free of chunks, is smooth and thoroughly combined.
- Add your dry ingredients: baking soda, salt, almond flour and oat flour. Combine until you have a thick dough and all flour chunks are mixed in.
- Using a cookie scoop, portion out your cookies. I like to roll mine in balls with my hands after I portion them to make them more even & more smooth. These cookies don't spread much so flatten down to the size you'd like them to be (just be aware if they are thinner, they will take less time to bake). Grab your sugar coating bowl and coat the balls of dough in sugar. If you'd like the peanut butter cookie stamp of approval, use a back of a fork (or a pastry cutter) and press down to give it the signature crisscross pattern.
- Refrigerate (or freeze) for as little as 1 hour (or longer if you don’t want to bake them right now, or bake them as needed). This will let the dough rest before you bake.
- In a medium bowl, make your sandwich filling by combining your plant butter with your jelly of choice and salt. Mix with a stand mixer or hand mixer until the mixture is creamy and no butter chunks remain. Add your powdered sugar and combine until it becomes a thick paste (this might be a few minutes). I like to portion out the filling based on how many cookie dough balls I made (divided by two to make a sandwich). Use a scale for this if you are OCD like me or wing it based on eye balling. Roll into a ball with your hands and flatten to the size of your cookies. I put these on a piece of parchment or plastic wrap until I need them.
- Preheat your oven to 350. On your prepared baking sheets, space out the cookie dough ball with at least 1 inch of space in between each of the flourless cookies. Add a pinch of salt to each cookie top. Bake 10-15 minutes, rotating your cookie sheet half way. Bake until lightly golden on the edges.
- If making sandwich cookies, grab your filling and press together two cookies with each portioned filling. Gently smash them so the filling adheres to cookies.
- Have leftovers? Store in an airtight container for later enjoyment.
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