Gluten & Dairy Free Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies

Um. Okay. Another long recipe title here BUT the ingredient list is so short it kinda makes up for it, right? I set out with the intention of testing a gluten and dairy free cookie for an event I’m attending this coming weekend. Notice how I said “testing”? I always want to make sure they are good enough to share before they leave the house. After researching and Pinteresting, I found this recipe from Ovenly that not only sounded easy, it looked totally delish too.

When I checked my pantry and found that I had ALL the ingredients, I was ready to rock and roll. Now, here’s where I changed things up a bit. I wanted to add dark chocolate to these because, well, chocolate is everything in a cookie. You know what I’m talking about. Chocolate, sea salt and peanut butter are literally a match made in cookie heaven.

I had a bar of 70% dark chocolate that I chopped up coarsely and added it at the end of the mixing process. Oh, and one more thing. I didn’t have LIGHT BROWN sugar, just DARK BROWN and I thought, heck, what’s the diff? Folks, there is definitely a distinct difference between the two sugars and I’m not sure if it screwed with my cookies.

So, here’s how it all went down. After I made my dough, there is a recommended chilling process. I placed the dough in the freezer and found that it was still a bit loose so I switched it up and threw it into the fridge for an hour. When I make my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, they only require a chill of 30 minutes in the fridge to be scoopable. I figured these would be the same BUT there is NO flour in this recipe so how the heck do they hold together? Beats me.

After an hour, I managed to scoop them perfectly but was still a bit concerned about their consistency as I didn’t want them to spread during the baking process. I thought that I had nothing to lose by chilling the scooped balls again until they were firm.

Guess what?

I baked them and they still spread! So what did I do wrong here? I’m thinking it could have been the dark brown sugar? Here’s what I found out about light and dark brown sugar.

In baking both sugars act the same way in the dough, but the taste and colour will be slightly different. You can substitute dark brown sugar for the light brown sugar in the cookie recipe, however the cookies will be slightly darker in colour and will have a slightly more caramelly/toffee taste to them.

And yes, there is a difference between light brown sugar and dark brown sugar, but you can make substitutions if you only have one type on hand. … If the recipe calls for light but dark is all you have, use a packed 2/3 cup dark and 1/3 cup white for every packed cup of light sugar needed.

So, what do you think? I believe the culprit to the Flatzie style of these cookies was due to the sugar. Bottom line? They were totally yummy and gone in a flash but I’m going to try these again with the correct ingredients. Happy baking!

Gluten & Dairy Free Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies

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Author: simply beautiful eating - inspired by Ovenly

Serves: 12

Ingredients

1¾ cups light brown sugar, packed (USE LIGHT AND NOT DARK IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO SPREAD and TASTE VERY MOLASSES LADEN)
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1¾ cups smooth peanut butter
1 (100g) bar dark chocolate (or semi-sweet), chopped
Flaked Sea Salt

Instructions

In a medium size bowl, vigoursly whisk together sugar and eggs until incorporated. Add the vanilla and whisk again to combine. Switch to a wooden spoon and mix in the peanut butter until no streaks are visible. Add the chocolate chunks and stir just to combine.
At this point, you need to chill the dough in the freezer for at least 15 minutes or in the fridge for one hour so it's scoopable (Use a 2 oz ice cream scoop)
Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Scoop cookie dough onto baking pan and leave at least two inches between the cookies.
Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of flaked sea salt and place the whole pan into the freezer again for another 15 minutes or you can chill in the fridge for a few hours until ready to bake.
Preheat oven to 350F. Place the cookie straight from the chilling process into the oven and bake for 18 - 20 minutes. Remove and let cool on baking pan for 10 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.