Gluten-free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds

So basically I’ve been doing some major experimenting inside my kitchen lately trying to figure out how this whole “gluten-free” baking works.  So many of the recipes I find online have a long list of ingredients I don’t have in my pantry and really can’t add to the grocery list without breaking my food budget.  Instead, I began to focus on the recipes I know the family loves and work toward converting them to GF with as little new ingredients as possible.  I am very thankful to have stumbled across a website that gives the exact conversion for all-purpose flour to coconut flour.

Sam’s Club had this huge bag of coconut flour on sale for less than $8.50.  I had purchased this about a month ago and it seems to last forever since you don’t use nearly as much coconut flour as you do AP flour.  Don’t judge me too harshly for the giant container of peanut butter.  It’s cheaper than almond butter and my kids love eating it with just about anything for a tasty snack.

Here is the link to the original recipe – Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds.  To make this recipe GF, simply take out the 1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour and substitute in 1/3 C. coconut flour and use some GF oatmeal.  That’s it!!

The change in flours didn’t change the overall taste or texture of the cookie, but it did change the density.  I’ve noticed that GF baked goods don’t “fluff” like other baked foods.  My simple answer to that would be that GF items don’t fluff because they don’t have the “fluff-making” gluten.  This recipe works so well as a GF conversion because of the extra moisture from the peanut butter, butter and eggs.  Usually you have to add extra moisture when using coconut flour.  None needed here!  Please keep in mind when making this recipe that you won’t get the originally stated 48 cookies.  It will be more like 24-36 depending on how big you make them.

They are STILL a family favorite treat!  :-)