Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

So melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter goodness like whhaaaaaat.

There are a couple of things I want to say about this. First off, EASY. Almost stupidly easy. One bowl, no flour, no baking powder. Just throw your ingredients into a mixer or hand-mix and all of a sudden you have a delicious bowl of cookie dough that tastes like the filling of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. And no, I’m not kidding. Secondly, gluten free. I’m not claiming to know much about baking/eating without gluten, but holy heck, you won’t miss it at all. I know a lot of GF treats sometimes leave a little to be desired, but these are incredibly soft and bursting with peanut butter and chocolate flavor that go perfectly with a glass of milk.

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

This summer has been the summer of cookies. Which also lends itself to being the summer of buckets of sugar and five tons of butter. Which also also should lend to me spending a good amount of time running or hitting up the gym, but my exercise lately has been reduced to beating together my butter and sugar. Also I’m lying because I have a Kitchenaid. Chewing counts as working out, right?

What was I saying again?

OH YEA. It’s the summer of cookies! From my No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites to my Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies (<—I die. SO good), it’s been a good season for sweets and these peanut butter bites are no exception. They are little pillows of fluffy goodness and are chock full of melty chocolate chips and crunchy pieces of crushed peanuts. I actually had to make two seperate batches of these before I was able to snap some photos of them since they magically dissapeared overnight. Apart from me being a little irritated at having to have to heat up the house a little with the oven, it meant that I could make some more of the best peanut butter cookie dough ever and enjoy it with a triple shot latte that Kyle brought me. The BEST. Is anyone like that as well? I usually make myself so sick off of stuffing my face with cookie dough that when the final product comes out, I’m left lying on the ground in a (magnificent) sugar coma.

And I’m okay with that.

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies 5

This recipe is adapted from the lovely people at Cooking Light!

 

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

I actually can’t stop eating this right now.

So good. So so so good.

I was skeptical at first, but I have been turned into a healthy fudge believer. Like, do those words even belong together? It’s seems like some sort of food miracle. Hallelujah! 

I’ve actually never worked with coconut oil before. The last time I was at my parent’s house, I noticed an unopened jar hiding in the back of the cupboard. It was just taking up space, so I stole it my mom let me take it back to school with me. SCORE. I opened it up yesterday and took a small taste. I was totally thinking it would be, well, coconut-y tasting, but it’s actually super mild and neutral tasting. And guess what? It helps make the most amazing (healthier) fudge ever!

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

This is one of those recipes where you keep finding yourself taking leeeetle “taste tests” throughout the cooking process. I think I ate a solid 1/3 of the batter before it even made it into the pan to solidify and I walked around the house for 30 minutes before realizing that I had brown fudge smeared all over my forehead. And not like a little dab, either. Full blown poop-face was happening. But it’s okay, don’t stress. It’s a delicious sacrifice that I am willing to make. 

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

This is a one-bowl recipe that I slightly adapted from The Nourishing Gourmet to include honey as the sweetener. The one catch is that it needs to be stored in the fridge or else you’ll be dealing with a (tasty) healthy chocolate mousse instead of fudge. 

Enjoy! 

 

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies!

So this is me right now. I’m sitting at our dining table in our gorgeously open and light living room. The glass door is open. You can hear the sound of waves crashing softly in the background. Palm trees blowing in the wind. All I can see is a huge expanse of ocean. Well, that and our neighbors playing beer pong in their backyard.

Brb. I’ll show you.

View from Apartment

To say the least, it can all get a little distracting 😯 .

I’m blaming my lack of ability to concentrate on living in such a gorgeous place. I have miles more free time now that it’s summer, but I find myself not being all that productive. Back when I was sleeping 3-5 hours a night for weeks at a time and living in the library, I had grand plans of spending all my free-time blogging, working on my freelance work, exploring new places in Santa Barbara, etc. Instead all I want to do is sit outside and watch the waves roll back and forth with a cup of coffee and a cookie (or 12).

Specifically these cookies.

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies

You see, the deliciousness of a cookie directly correlates to the amount of goodies and add-ins you can stuff into it. It’s proven by a complex math derivative that involved copious amounts of physics, or something.

Here, let me try to explain it in this helpful diagram.

Complicated Graph CookiesAhhhhh yes… I see. Intriguing.

*twiddles mustache thoughtfully*.

If you carefully study the diagram, you can easily see the relationship to the piles of added cookies and cream chunks and white chocolate chips in these Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies to their deliciousness. I mean, if the name has the word “cookies” in it twice, it must be twice as good, right?!

Like their name suggests, these babies are loaded fully loaded with yumminess and have a great chewy crust but soft middle. They’re fantastically sweet and go better with a cup of coffee than any other cookie I’ve ever had, and that, my friends, is saying something.

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies!!

So grab yourself a mug of liquid energy, a cookie straight out of the oven, and an oceanside view like me and you’re ready to start your morning off right.

Life is good.

Cookie base adapted from The Kitchen Magpie

 

Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

Strawberry and Cream Oatmeal. Everyone says this tastes like dessert, but it's healthy!

After the most stressful year I’ve ever had, I’m living in a beachside house with a great group of girls and even though I’m taking summer classes, my earliest lecture doesn’t start till 11 in the morning and I have three day weekends. Every week, you guys 😯  .

So now that I have an entire morning to catch up on blog reading over a filling and tasty breakfast, you better bet that I’m taking full advantage of it!

Strawberry and Cream Oatmeal. Everyone says this tastes like dessert, but it's healthy!

One of the perks of living with so many friends is that there’s always someone who is willing to be a taste tester. After finishing up shooting pictures of my newest creation, two of the girls wandered into our kitchen and snuck a bite. Their verdict?

“THIS TASTES LIKE DESSERT!!”

And yup yup yup, it’s that good my friends. Tangy, fresh, sweet, creamy, and healthy. What more could you want? My game plan is to double the recipe and store some of the easy strawberry compote in the fridge to quickly top my oats in the morning and save time and gain yummyness.

Strawberry and Cream Oatmeal. Everyone says this tastes like dessert, but it's healthy!

Also, can we all give a big hurrah over all the summer fruit that’s in season? My mindset right now is eat all the berries and I’ve been devouring cartons on cartons of blueberries and strawberries like nobody’s business. Berries beware. I’m on the loose.

Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal 4

I’m linking up today with the lovely Jenn from WIAW to share these delicious oats! 


Looking for more tasty oatmeal recipes? Here are some of my favorites!    

Blueberry Pie Oats

Blueberry Pie Oats

Baked Honey Berry Oatmeal

Baked Berry Oatmeal

 

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

Is it weird that cooking and baking with some ingredients intimidate me? Yeast for bread baking used to give me the heeby jeebies and, fun fact, I even went as far as to use it as one of the topics for my college essays. What?! You never used a fungus to help sway your way into higher education? #lonewolf

Well, apparently it worked because I’m in college (woo!) and eventually overcame that weird phobia and now can make delicious baked goods like focaccia and Norsk boller and cinnamon rolls.

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

Annnnddd guess what! Today I crossed off another food-related fear and used puff pastry. There’s something so intimidating about it. Like, for reals, there must be some catch behind all those flaky layers. I had this idea in my head that the dough would be all temperamental and cranky to work with or that I would need to let it rise a million times, but nope. The exact opposite is true. EASIEST thing ever.

Okay, okay. Maybe using pre-made puff pastry is cheating slightly, but ain’t nobody got time to make their own. I’m all about convenience, and if using store-bought dough means I can have Salted Caramel Apple Turnovers in my mouth that much faster, sign me up! No food snobbery here.

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

The hardest part of this recipe is probably cutting the apples. Especially if you’re like me and have to stop every 30 seconds to eat the peeled apple skins. My Obachan (Japanese grandma) always laughs at me and calls me rabbit for nibbling on the scraps, while my mom scolds me for my “dangerous” apple cutting technique. Ahhhh family love at its finest.

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

Once the hard part is over, you get all your apple bits and caramel ingredients going in a pot. Add a little heat, and presssttooo!

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

Then, you take out that scary looking puff pastry, unroll it, and cut it into squares. Add a dollop of apple filling into the middle (don’t get too excited and overfill them like me, though), fold the square into a triangle, crimp the edges, and throw em in the oven.

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

And that’s it. You pull these gorgeous and bakery-worthy treats out of the oven and impress everybody. I’ve been staying over at Kyle’s apartment with his roommates, and shocked them by serving these babies up in 30 minutes. One of his roommates exclaimed that he JUST saw me stewing up some apples a few minutes ago, then all of a sudden I had these gorgeously flaky pastries on a plate in front of them. They probably think I’m some sort of magical goddess of turnovers now. Throw in an intense World Cup match (ahhhh the PK shootout!) and you’ve got yourself a house full of happy boys.

Easy Caramel Apple Turnovers

These are perfectly sweet and the flake-factor of the puff pastry itself is insane. Oh! And a pretty drizzle of powdered sugar glaze is completely mandatory.