If you love peanut butter, then you will love these cookies. They’re gluten-free and can be dairy-free if you use a dairy-free chocolate or make a chocolate-glaze from cacao butter. But don’t worry – all the recipe details will be at the end of this post.
Today I wanted to talk about the America’s Got Talent winner – Grace VanderWaal. She’s only 12 years old and is an absolutely amazing singer as well as ukulele player. Being Australian, I haven’t seen any episodes of AGT, but on YouTube I saw Grace in a Jimmy Fallon interview and so that’s how I heard her. She deserves to be known worldwide.
Words cannot describe how phenomenal her voice and personality is. I cried during her audition when she sang I Don’t Know My Name and her finale performance – Clay – was very good as well. The thing which amazes me so much is that her songs are originals! She writes her own songs! And Simon Cowell even said that she could be the next Taylor Swift!!!
So Grace’s passion is singing and mine is baking, but everyone has some sort of dream they wish to pursue. Beyond Our Sky has always been one of my many dreams, and it feels like the only thing that is real and true to myself. I have to admit, at the moment I am feeling very sick. I know what you’re thinking – how are you cooking when you’re feeling sick? Well, I’m not the type of person who can just sit around and do nothing all day – even if I have little to no energy and haven’t been eating. But these cookies are very easy to make and take little to no effort. You simply mix everything together (as you can see in the image above) then you refrigerate the dough, roll and bake it.
You can roll the dough between two sheets of baking/parchment paper to get more uniform, circular cookies or you can roll it into balls for a more homemade, rustic look. Which is what I did because I was too lazy.
These may be peanut butter cookies but I didn’t have any peanuts to garnish them with. So I used toasted almonds instead. I actually prefer the taste of almonds rather than peanuts when eating them on their own. But if I were to chose between almonds and peanut butter – then I would chose peanut butter.
So basically you bake the cookies, melt your chocolate and chop the nuts. Then the fun part comes- dipping them in chocolate! It may get a bit messy and I am a very messy cook; although my Mum is the one that needs to wash up. We try to put everything into the dishwasher, but things like cooling racks or baking trays are too big to fit in there. She gets annoyed at me sometimes (or maybe all the time) for making a mess and I don’t have a good excuse for why I don’t wash up. But if I do wash the dishes, she will redo it anyway because they’re not clean enough in her standards.
One thing I do clean is the table I take photos on, and I even vacuum the floor so it is free of crumbs. I hope my photographs are improving. I’m getting better at using the Canon camera. I also asked my dad and brother to move the table so its right next to the window, and do you know what that means? Natural light!
I am thinking about creating a post on food photography and styling, but am I really good enough to do that? Do I know enough knowledge to write an entire post? I know my food photography/styling could do with a little work. There are so many bloggers that have beautiful plates, table surfaces and set-ups – and I would be lying if i wasn’t jealous. I do prefer the simplistic look. I like the food to truly shine so the background can’t too busy or have any unnecessary distractions. I take my food in an all-white setting, and some people do what is known as a “moody shot” – which is an all-black setting (see Call Me Cupcake). I wish I had a marble bench top, but you have to work with what you’ve got.
I may not be the best at what I do, but I am happy with how far I’ve come compared to where I was 6 months ago (see my first post here!). Wow. I actually started my blog exactly 6 months and 4 days ago from today. It feels like I’ve been doing this for ages. So I recommend you make these. They are very chewy, peanut-buttery and wonderfully delicious. Please use the hashtag #beyondoursky so I can see your creations!
Gluten-free Peanut Butter Cookies (with Dairy-Free option)
Adapted from Clean and Simple Eating by Lorna Jane.
Ingredients
- 1 cup gluten-free oats (optional)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1 cup (280g) smooth peanut butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100g dark chocolate, melted (see dairy-free option below)
- 100g toasted almonds to garnish (or any nuts of your preference)
Chocolate Glaze (dairy-free recipe):
- 125g (4 ounces) cacao butter, shaved
- 1/2 cup (50g) cacao powder
- 2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup to taste
Method
- Whisk together oats, brown sugar and caster sugar until well combined. Add the peanut butter, egg and vanilla extract. Then stir until soft dough forms. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 170 C/300°F and line trays with baking paper.
- Roll dough into balls and place them onto lined trays. Make sure there is room between the cookies as they spread out. Flatten slightly.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes and allow to cool on the baking sheet (don’t be alarmed if they’re still quite soft when you take them out of the oven – that’s how they’re meant to be for a chewy cookie)
- Once the cookies have cooled, dip them in melted chocolate/cooled chocolate glaze and sprinkle with nuts. Allow the chocolate to set, then serve and enjoy!
Chocolate Glaze:
- Place cacao butter into a heatproof bowl over a bain-marie or a pot of simmering water (make sure the bowl isn’t touching the water!). Once melted, take the bowl off the heat. Then stir through the cacao powder and sweetener. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Set aside until cookies are completely cooled.
*NOTES: For more uniform cookies – roll the dough between two pieces of baking paper and use a two-inch/5cm ring mold to cut circles out.
Olivia Liang
😍😍😍Looks very delicious 😋 can’t wait to try it out…Great job 👍
Michelle Seeto
Thank you!!! 😉😄