Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Diets are hard. Allergies are hard. Finding recipes that work can also be hard but search no further! You have hit the jack pot for a classic Peanut Butter Cookie recipe that is both gluten free and keto-friendly. These were my absolute favorite growing up, making them as an adult was nostalgic and also quite easy! I encourage you to give it a try. 

Description

Since the turn of the 20th century, traditional peanut butter cookies have been made.

These sweets are difficult to live without and are adored for their flavor and texture. If you follow the ketogenic diet, you are well aware that you cannot consume carbohydrates and sugar. Fortunately, you won’t have to give up these traditional cookies with this version.

You’ll be one step closer to this nutritious, guilt-free, and most importantly, tasty treat using basic keto-friendly & gluten free ingredients!

They are full of delicious peanut butter and are soft and chewy. Most importantly, this dish is simple. The entire process only takes 20 minutes. There is no better way to put it.

Ingredients

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup low-calorie sweetener (i.e. Swerve)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon sugar-free vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper.
2. Combine the peanut butter, sweetener, egg, vanilla, and butter in a bowl. Keep mixing until you form a dough.
3. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Place them on the lined baking sheet. Make a criss-cross indentation by pressing a fork into the balls horizontally then vertically.
4. Bake the balls for 12 minutes for chewy cookies, or 14 if you want them with a shortbread-like texture. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for 1 minute before transferring onto a wire rack to cool.

This recipe allows for some autonomy. Pick your favorite peanut butter and get to baking! Plus you can throw the classic fork design or change it up to your own artistic endeavors. Regardless, give this a try, see what you think – I bet it brings back some tasty memories. 

Gluten Free Custard Creams

February is the perfect time to talk about custard creams. It’s a month of love. That’s what custard powder was born out of. See, Alfred Bird invented the custard powder back in 1837 for his wife so that she could indulge in a treat we all enjoy. She was allergic to eggs and so he found a way to create it from scratch without the eggs. How romantic!

Custard creams didn’t exist until later, though. They have supposedly been around since 1908 and have been one of the Brits’ favourite biscuits. In a poll that surveyed 7,000 people, 9 out of 10 people chose the custard cream as their favourite biscuit. The secret must lie in how ‘fun’ it is to eat them. Do you simply bite into them? Lick the cream around the edges or open the biscuits?

Nevertheless, there are tons of different types of custard creams as well as recipes, including their unique flavours. In this article, you’ll learn how to make them gluten-free!

What are gluten free custard creams?

Simply put, they’re custard cream biscuits that don’t contain gluten that you’d normally find in the flour used to make them.

Why gluten free custard creams? Who are they intended for?

For some, free from gluten is their preferred way of eating, while for others it’s the only safe choice to protect their health.

“A gluten-free diet is recommended for people with celiac disease, gluten-sensitivity or the skin disorder dermatitis herpetiformis. A gluten-free diet may be helpful for some people with irritable bowel syndrome, the neurological disorder gluten ataxia, type 1 diabetes and HIV-associated enteropathy.” – Jennifer K. Nelson, R.D., L.D.

Are gluten free custard creams easy to make?

Yes, it’s easier than you think. They only take 15-20 mins to prepare, 10-15 minutes to bake and an additional 20 minutes to chill if you wish. See how easy they are to make in the recipe below.

Why make them yourself at home?

Buying custard creams at a shop is fine, but you have no control over what and how much of it is in them. Not only that but oftentimes they’re rather crumbly, gritty and dry. Not their usual fluffy, soft and yummy selves. And let’s be honest, nothing beats homemade.

Are custard creams gluten free?

The custard creams you find in supermarkets are typically not gluten-free but there are many that are. They’re easy to make at home, whether they’re gluten free or not.

Does custard contain gluten?

Unless it’s made with flour, it doesn’t contain gluten. Custard is based on a mixture of egg and dairy and without grains, it has no gluten.

Which custard powder is gluten free?

The type of custard powder that contains starch or gluten-free flour.

Is Birds custard powder gluten free?

Yes, the ingredients are gluten-free, however, there may be a risk of cross-contamination with other foods depending on the preparation.

What you’ll need to make gluten free custard creams

• Oven
• Kitchen scale to measure ingredients
• Baking tray
• Baking paper
• Fork or cooling rack
• A mixing bowl or two
• Electric whisk or a mixing spoon/spatula
• Custard cream mould (or rolling pin and biscuit cutter)
• Butter knife
• Fridge/freezer

What flour you’ll need

Any gluten-free flour will do. It’s what will make your custard creams gluten-free. If you want to go further, you can find dairy-free butter.

How to make gluten free custard creams

These are really simple, quick and easy to make.

Serving: 15 Gluten Free Creams

Preparation time: 15-20 mins

Cooking time: 10-15 mins

Total time: 30-35 min

Longer if you decide to chill the dough and/or make the traditional print

The Biscuits

1. Line a baking tray with a non-stick baking paper or silicone one.
2. Preheat your oven to 160-180C/320-356F.
3. To start with, you’ll need some butter in a medium-sized bowl. Give it a quick mix to loosen it up. Ideally, you want to use an electric whisk. But a fork or spatula will do, too.
4. Then you’ll need to add the caster sugar. If you don’t have custard sugar you can use regular icing sugar. But you’ll need to use a bit less because icing sugar ends up being a lot sweeter for the same amount of weight.
5. Whisk and mix that together until the butter is pale and fluffy.
6. Using a sifter, add in your gluten free flour, custard powder and baking powder.
7. Mix it all up until it all comes together in a uniform shape. It’ll be bread crummy at first but it eventually comes together in biscuit dough. Your dough is now ready. Your biscuit dough is good to be shaped.
8. You can roll it out and stamp out the shapes. But if you want it done quickly and easily, make little balls into about a walnut size and place them on top of the sheet that you prepared at the start.
9. Use a cooling rack or fork to flatten the balls out using gentle pressure.
10. Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 mins.
11. When you’re baking your biscuits you want to look for them to just ‘browning’ on the edges. That’s when you know that they’re done. If you bake them too much they become too dry and crumbly. Take them out and let them cool completely.

chill the dough (optional)

1. Put the tray of dough biscuits in the fridge and leave it there for about 20 minutes to chill (alternatively go for the freezer for about 10 minutes)
2. In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas 4.
3. When the dough biscuits have chilled, space them out evenly to make sure they have room to grow in the oven.

Buttercream filling

ingredients for the cream filling

• 60 g or ¼ cup of unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 120 g or ¾ cup + 1 tbsp of icing sugar
• a few drops of vanilla extract, or vanilla essence

Double the amount of icing sugar to butter.

1. Put your unsalted butter in a mixing bowl. Give it a quick mix to soften and loosen it up before adding the icing sugar.
2. Add the icing sugar carefully. Ideally in a few batches to avoid a sugar explosion. Mix slowly and gently.
3. Add a couple of drops of vanilla extract between the icing sugar batches. The better quality of the vanilla extract, the better the result. You get the purest form of vanilla rather than a synthetic flavour. If you only have the vanilla essence, you can use that but vanilla extract is, for this reason, better than the essence.
4. Optional: add custard powder to the buttercream filling as well if you can’t get enough of the custardy flavour.
5. Add the intensity and speed of the electric whisk to make the buttercream lighter and fluffier. It’ll be smooth and creamy. Aim for a pale colour again. You can add some extra custard powder into the buttercream as well and mix it through. If you don’t want it too custardy then skip it.
6. All that’s now left to do is to scoop a bit of the cream onto a knife, spread it on one cookie and sandwich it with another. For a fancier look, you can put the cream in a piping bag and feed it through that. Depends on how much time and patience you have. And how long you can wait before you get to eat these delicious cookies. Spread it out nice and even.

If you pile a bit more in the middle and squish two biscuits together creating a sandwich biscuit it will get spread out evenly to the sides.

Note: Custard powder is easy to get in the UK but if you live somewhere else, you can find a British store that’ll likely have it. Or you can find it on Amazon.

How to get the traditional pattern on the biscuits

This is optional if you want the traditional custard cream print on the biscuits using a custard cream mould.

1. Dust the surface of a custard cream mould with gluten free flour so that the biscuit dough doesn’t stick to it.
2. Scoop out about a teaspoon of the biscuit dough using a butter knife or spoon and transfer it into the mould. Spread it out evenly.
3. Ensure you work on a firm surface. Put the mould on a piece of baking paper and push down fairly firmly on the plunger for a few seconds.
4. Push the moulded biscuit out onto the baking tray. Each biscuit should be about ¾ cm thick.
5. Repeat the process of dusting, filling and moulding until you’ve used all the dough. Viola! Your traditional biscuits are ready.

Final steps

Take your fresh gluten free custard creams out of the oven and serve them. They’re now ready to be devoured with your favourite cup of tea. Lick away!

Curious about the true gluten-free deal? Try these gluten-free custard creams.

Try our oat cookies recipe

Digestive biscuits don’t look like much, but the reality is that they’re a satisfying and comforting biscuit that is great for dunking. This gluten-free digestive biscuit recipe is perfect for those who can’t or doesn’t want to eat gluten who still fancy a traditional digestive biscuit.

These gluten-free digestive biscuits are a great staple to keep in your pantry or biscuit tin for when you have a nice cup of tea or when you just fancy a snack to keep you going. They are also great to pack In your packed lunch for work or to put in your children’s packed lunch.

If you keep your cupboard stocked with these delicious biscuity staples, you will always manage to find a gluten-free snack. You will also always be able to offer a gluten-free snack to guests who may need to eat gluten-free.

This recipe uses a range of flours to make these digestive biscuits gluten-free and give them the same texture and flavour as regular digestive biscuits.

Gluten-free digestive biscuit instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 c fan assisted oven or 190 C for a non-fan assisted oven.
2. Sift all the flours together into a flour blend in a large mixing bowl along with the xantham gum, sea salt, muscovado sugar, and baking powder.
3. Add the butter and rub it into the dry mix until you get a breadcrumb-like consistency. If you don’t want to do this part by hand, you can also put them into the food processor and mix until you get the same breadcrumb-like consistency.
4. Now add the milk a dash at a time and stir/ fold in until the breadcrumb-like mixture forms into a dough.
5. When the dough has formed, it’s a good idea to shape the dough into a ball, wrap the dough, and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes to half an hour. This keeps the dough nice and firm and makes rolling it out much easier.
6. Once the dough is cool enough to roll out nicely, sprinkle tapioca starch or cornflour on the surface you will be rolling it on and on the rolling pin. This will stop the dough from sticking.
7. Alternatively, you can put the ball of dough in between two sheets of parchment paper and roll the dough through the paper.
8. Roll the dough out to 3-4 mm and then use a biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits.
9. Any leftover dough can be brought back together, re-rolled out, and made into one or two more biscuits.
10. Using a toothpick or a fork, prick the top of the biscuit randomly.
11. Place your raw gluten-free digestive biscuits on parchment paper and put them in the centre of the oven.
12. Bake your gluten-free digestive biscuits for about 11 minutes. You should start to see the outside of your biscuits browning a little, which will tell you it’s time to take them out.
13. When cooked, let them cool for a few minutes to harden slightly before transferring them to a cooling rack where they can cool completely to room temperature.

Making the Digestive chocolate topping

If you want to make your gluten-free digestive biscuits into gluten-free chocolate digestive biscuits them follow these next steps.

1. Break your chocolate up into pieces.
2. Melt either in a microwave or a bain-marie.
3. Once completely melted, you can pour a drop of the melted chocolate onto the gluten-free digestive biscuits.
4. Use a knife or spoon to gently spread the chocolate over the top of the gluten-free digestive biscuits.
5. Allow the chocolate to harden and enjoy.

Baking tips:

• Check your biscuits from around 9 minutes onwards. Some ovens cook faster than others, and so you will want to make sure you don’t accidentally over bake yours. Do this until you know how quickly your individual oven cooks this recipe.

• Make sure you only add the melted chocolate onto the gluten-free digestive biscuits once the biscuits are completely cool. You want the chocolate to harden again quickly once it has been applied. Without cool biscuits, the chocolate will just melt off.

• Add the milk very slowly to judge the texture of the dough. You may not need all of it, and you won’t want to use too much when pulling the dough together.

FAQ’S

Can I make this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe dairy-free?

Yes, this is very easy to do, and the recipe will work just as well dairy-free.

Simply replace the butter with a dairy-free alternative such as vegan butter.

A dairy-free alternative for milk will also work fine in this recipe, such as almond, coconut, or oat.

You can also buy dairy-free chocolate if you want to make a chocolate gluten-free digestive biscuit.

Can I use regular sugar instead of brown muscovado sugar in these gluten-free digestive biscuits?

You can use normal granulated sugar if you prefer instead of brown sugar. However, it will alter the texture and flavour. You may also find that without muscovado sugar, your biscuit won’t quite hold together as well.

Can I use bicarbonate of soda instead of baking powder?

If you don’t have any baking powder, you can use bicarbonate of soda instead.

Where can I get the ingredients for this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe?

While gluten-free baking is definitely becoming more mainstream, and you can usually get all of your baking items from the supermarket, you might not be able to get them all from the shops for this recipe.

For some of the ingredients in this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe, you may need to head to your local health food store or order them online. So this recipe may take a little bit of fore planning before you can get down to baking it.

What is the best way to store these biscuits?

To keep these biscuits fresh and crunchy, make sure you keep them in an airtight container.

How do I melt the chocolate without burning it?

There is definitely a knack for melting chocolate, and you need to do it in certain ways to stop it from burning.

You could use a bain-marie to melt your chocolate. To make a home bain-marie with your general kitchen equipment, put a pot of boiling water on the stove and then a bowl on top of the pot. Now put your broken-up chocolate pieces on the hob and keep stirring until melted.

This method provides a very gentle heat, and so you don’t risk burning your chocolate. This is the best way.

Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave, but you need to stop every 10 seconds or so to stir it. Keep doing this until your chocolate is melted. Don’t put your chocolate in the microwave for an extended period as you risk burning it.

Digestive biscuits are a treat you definitely just don’t want to go without, so why should you just because you have to go gluten-free? Well, this gluten and wheat free biscuits recipe means that you don’t have to.

Of all the gluten-free recipes, this is a really simple and easy biscuits recipe that you can make regular and keep stocked to enjoy whenever you need a gluten-free treat.

Optional ingredients:

If you want to make chocolate digestive biscuits, then you will need either milk chocolate or dark chocolate, depending on your preference.

Try our key-lime pie recipe

If you’re experiencing what they call the January blues, it may be time to indulge in a scrumptious pick-me-up. This twist on a classic recipe is the perfect snack for the job, and they’re super easy to make!

Firstly, you will need to grab a large saucepan and pour in the condensed milk, butter and sugar and melt on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. It’s best to stir this frequently to avoid anything catching.

When the sugar has dissolved, turn the heat up high and let the mixture come to boiling point and boil for 3-4 minutes, making sure to stir constantly. This mixture will be extremely hot so be cautious of splash back.

When the mixture has turned a slightly darker golden colour and thickened to a soft fudge texture, it’s time to grab your flapjacks!

Arrange your flapjack slices tightly in a tin and pour your caramel over the top. This will then need to be left to set in the fridge for 1-2 hours (It’s worth the wait we promise).

Once this has set, melt both the milk and white chocolate separately in the microwave. Pour over the milk chocolate so that it covers the caramel layer and then drizzle the white chocolate over the top of this. If you’re feeling fancy you can even try swirling them together to make a pattern.

Pop your flapjacks back in the fridge for another 1-2 hours or until the chocolate has set. Then your left with deliciously rich, crumbly treats to share with friends, or alternatively save them all for yourself to enjoy with your mid morning cup of tea!

Try our chocolate chunk shortbread cookies recipe