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3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies: Easy and Gluten-Free, Too

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies … it just doesn’t get any easier than this!

Also known as “1-2-3 Peanut Butter Cookies,” this cookie recipe is simple and fast to put together. The ratio is always the same: 1-1-1 for cups of peanut butter to cups of sugar to eggs. The cookies are great for kids to make.

Plus, they are naturally gluten-free. Think of it – you can bake homemade cookies even if you’re out of flour!

You can throw in a handful of chocolate chips or a cup of chopped peanuts for variety. You can double or triple the recipe to bake more cookies. But in the end, the recipe as it stands gives you an old-fashioned homemade peanut butter cookie that’s chewy, dense, completely wonderful – and so easy to make.

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Prep time: 10 minutes

Bake time: 8-12 minutes

Makes about 12-18 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup peanut butter (any variety)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350º F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

  • In a medium bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream peanut butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg.

  • Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. With a fork, press tines over peanut butter balls in a crosshatch pattern, one at a time, to flatten each cookie.

  • Bake 8-11 minutes until cookies are lightly brown around the edges and appear to have no moisture peeking through crackled tops. Do not over bake. Cookies are best when they are still soft with bottoms that are barely light brown. Remove cookie trays from the oven.

  • Allow cookies to sit for 5-10 minutes before using a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack. Let cookies cool completely.

  • Store cookies in an airtight container.

Special Baking Tips from The Elf

  • You can choose to use crunchy peanut butter rather than smooth peanut butter, depending on your taste, to give the cookie dough more texture.
  • Give cookies plenty of cooling time. 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies will become more and more firm as they cool. If you remove them from the baking sheets too soon, the cookies may break apart. Let cookies sit on baking sheets until you can safely lift them with a spatula and transfer them to cooling racks without cracking the tops.
  • Use several baking sheets. Because these cookies take longer to bake than most drop cookies and longer than most to become firm, use several baking sheets. This will allow you to rotate batches of cookies in and out of the oven without wasting oven heat and baking time.


More Elf-Tested Gluten-Free Cookie Recipes

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Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Cookies ...

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Peanut Fandangos: both a no-bake cookie and a gluten-free cookie ...

Peanut Butter Marshmallow Cookies: a Fluffernutter variation ...

Rocky Mountain Snowdrops ...

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Baking Gluten-Free Cookies: Do's and Don'ts ...

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