These Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are:
- soft and chewy
- perfectly salty-sweet
- naturally sweetened!
Not only are these Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies addictively delicious, they’re also unbelievably easy to make. They require just 5 ingredients and less than 30 minutes from start to finish!
The 5 ingredients are: dates, ground almonds, peanut butter, salt and vanilla.
The dates act as a natural sweetener as well as an egg replacement, as they help to bind the mixture together and create a fudgy texture without the need for refined sugar, whilst the ground almonds act as a grain-free flour replacement and also create an amazingly chewy texture. You can also use almond flour instead of ground almonds.
Salt combines with the caramel-like flavour of the dates to create a seriously addictive, salty-sweet taste, and vanilla adds a beautiful fragrance.
The ground almonds/almond flour can be substituted with ground walnuts, ground hazelnuts or sunflower seeds, and the peanut butter can easily be swapped with almond butter.
The criss-cross pattern on top of the cookies may look fancy, but it’s super simple to do! All you need to do is to press the prongs of a fork on top of the cookies – using a wet fork makes it much easier as otherwise the fork might have problems getting unstuck from the cookies!
The recipe here only makes 9 cookies, which may seem like a small number, but if you want to make more, the quantities can easily be doubled, tripled or even quadrupled.
These cookies make a great dessert, but also work as a snack for packed lunches or an afternoon pick-me-up.
They store well for a good few days, and taste exactly the same as they do on the day they’re made, without drying out or become crumbly.
For more delicious gluten-free and vegan cookies, check out my:
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I’d really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Helpful tools to make these Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies:
food processor
blender
hand-held stick blender
glass mixing bowl
rectangular baking tray
baking paper
Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 90 g (1/2 cup) pitted dates soaked overnight in cold water or in hot water for 10 minutes
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 65 g (1/4 cup) smooth peanut butter (or sub almond butter)
- 40 g (1/3 cup) ground almonds* (almond meal)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Drain the soaked dates and place in a blender or food processor (you can also use a hand-held stick blender)
- Whizz until completely smooth, then add the salt, vanilla, peanut butter and ground almonds and mix well
- Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and use your hands to form it into a small, circular, thick patty**
- Lay it out onto a baking tray lined with baking paper (no need to grease it)
- Repeat until the rest of the batter is used up - you should be able to make 9 cookies
- Take a wet fork and press the prongs of the fork across the top of a cookie then turn the fork around 180 degrees and press the fork prongs over the patty again to create a criss-cross pattern - a wet fork will make this easier
- Repeat for the rest of the cookies
- Bake in the oven for around 12 minutes - don’t worry if they’re quite soft when you take them out as they will firm up as they cool down
- Leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight container - keeps in the fridge for a good few days
Notes
almond flour **If you find the mixture too gooey to shape with your hands, you can use a cookie scoop instead, and use your hands or the back of a spoon to flatten them slightlyDisclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you click through and purchase any of the products, a small percentage will come to me, with no extra cost to you! This income will go towards the running of this blog – thank you.
Jayne
Well, mine were a bit of a disaster! I did weigh everything out carefully, but the flavour of the dates dominated everything else, which is no mean feat where peanut butter is involved. I also struggled to blend the dates, they just adhered themselves to the edges of the blender and refused to move! I have a new oven which is perhaps a bit fierce, and they caught really quickly so mine were black on the bottom. I’m not sure I would make them again.