Flourless Nut Butter Cookies

Well, I've been dairy- and gluten-free since Monday and so far I've survived. I'm actually kind of enjoying getting creative with meals. I'll share what I've been eating in an upcoming post.

One thing that has helped me feel much less deprived is... SUN BUTTER! As you know, Parker has a full-on Epi-Pen allergy to peanuts. Therefore, no peanut butter in our house. I kept some peanut butter in my desk at work for a while, but that was a slippery slope from having a schmear of peanut butter on a couple of crackers to eating out of the jar with a spoon. On a daily basis. Not good. This week I discovered the BEST alternative to peanut butter- Sun Butter made from sunflower seeds. It tastes almost exactly like peanut butter. Maybe even better. I'm scraping the bottom of the jar already. Oy. In my defence, it's a small jar and I used an entire cup of it for these nut butter cookies.

I Googled "nut butter cookies" last night and was stirring ingredients for these flourless cookies within 5 minutes. I read through a couple of the recipe reviews to ensure they would turn out ok with the Sun Butter since it's a bit runnier than peanut butter, the reviews seemed promising so I went ahead. Indeed, these are exactly like the real thing. Oh peanut butter cookies, how I missed you in my life.

One of the reviews I read made me laugh out loud. A woman said, "They're sweet and rich. I baked them on the top shelf of the oven rack. I sprinkled them with sugar prior to baking them. I followed the recipe exactly. I gave them four stars rather than five because I like to eat several cookies at a time and these are so rich, you can only eat one, maybe two. But the flavor and texture were perfect."
You're kidding right? You gave a recipe less of a rating because they're so delicious that you want to eat a ton more but the cookies are so rich that you are satisfied with just one or two? I call that a win.

FLOURLESS NUT BUTTER COOKIES

Adapted from Food Network

Makes approx 18 cookies

If your nut butter is not sweetened increase the sugar to 3/4 cup or up to 1 cup. Give a bit of the dough a taste and use your judgement. 

• 1 cup Sun Butter or other nut butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• coarse sea salt, for sprinkling

Heat oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix all ingredients but salt in a mixing bowl until combined. Spoon 1 tbsp of dough onto baking sheet, spacing about 1 inch apart. Roll into balls then flatten with the tines of a fork. Sprinkle with salt. Bake approx. 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet 5 minutes before carefully transferring to cooling rack.