Following a request for gluten free chocolate chip cookies, I tried to make these. I remember a recipe for peanut butter cookies from when I was younger....mmmm.
So, melt 50g of butter. Add 100g ground almonds, 1 egg yolk, 50g sugar, 25g of crunchy peanut butter, 1/2 tsp baking powder, handful of dark chocolate chips and mix well.
Divide mixture and roll into 12 small balls. Place on a baking tray lined with grease-proof paper, and squash slightly with a fork. Doing this twice at right angles makes the pretty criss-cross pattern. Bake at 180 degree C for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from the tray.
Hi Melanie. I love this recipe. Thanks for posting it. I've made it several times, and this time I tripled the recipe, but the cookies came out really thin (which is okay), but too crumbly. I tried adding another egg yolk, and that helped a bit. I'm wondering if you might be able to tell me why you use egg yolks and not the whole egg? And what I might add to bind the cookies better so they're not so crumbly... Thanks so very much! kristin
ReplyDeleteHi Kristin,
ReplyDeleteglad to hear the cookies are so popular - I've never made more than a double batch....the recipe came about from me reading lots of other (gluten-full) biscuit recipes and taking the rough proportions of dry ingredients:fat:egg and adapting it from there. I used an egg yolk mostly because its easier than using half a whole egg! Also, this is what some of the other cookie recipes I looked at used. This recipe came out good first time so I haven't done a lot of experimenting with it. However, with the other biscuit recipe (Hazelnut, orange and chocolate), my sister and I have very different results and I suspect it is to do with the amount of butter (and peanut butter in this case) - she uses a little more butter, and her biscuits often go all flat and thin (compared to mine) and are quite often crumbly, but also crispier. So maybe cut back a bit on the butter? Otherwise, you could try using some xanthan gum for binding (I've never tried it in biscuits, only in cakes and pastry), or maybe don't squash them at all pre-baking.
Hope that helps, enjoy experimenting! Melanie
Hi Melanie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for answering so promptly -- you must be quite busy with your new book!! I appreciate you taking the time to answer me so thoughtfully.
Yes, your cookies (and all your cake and cookie recipes for that matter) are very popular in my household. I'll try your suggestion on cutting back a bit on the butter. But, I do occasionally like me a crisp cookie! I didn't actually squash them prior to baking, so perhaps you're right in that maybe I added too much butter. I thought by adding the extra yolk, that might bind them better -- curious that it didn't...
I just saw that you posted another recipe -- we try to avoid rice flour, however, so I may try it with almond flour... Also, not sure I can find treacle (I live in Stockholm, though I'm from the US). I have some molasses, so I'll try subbing with that. :-)
Thanks again for your amazing recipes. We're gluten free and always trying to cut back on our sugar intake without giving up completely our indulgence in sweets. :-)
Cheers,
Kristin
Hi Kristin,
ReplyDeleteAdding the extra egg yolk might not have helped because egg yolk is mostly fat with a little protein. I guess its probably the white that has the binding properties when baking. I would also guess subbing molasses for black treacle would be fine, also exchanging ground almonds for rice flour should also work OK too. You'll just have to experiment a bit. I prefer to use ground almonds too, I just find they are so expensive! But then they are a good nutritional food rather than empty carbs so...I have also used a mixture of nuts in the Ginger and Banana cake (macademias, walnuts...) and ground them myself so maybe give that a try too? You should check out our facebook group for GF, low(ish) carb recipes of all sorts, savoury and sweet - there's lots on there. The link is on the side of this page :-)
Best wishes
Melanie