Please the whole crowd with chewy peanut butter cookies loaded with honey roasted peanuts, graham crackers, and pretzels with these Gluten Free Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies. They’re crunchy. They’re chewy. They’re satisfyingly sweet!
Emry was driving me nuts tonight. She was being a total mixture of cute and cuddly thrown in with all kinds of crazy chaos. I couldn’t decide if I wanting to squeeze and kiss her or lock her in her room.
We’ve had three straight days of packed activities to the point that I’ve left the house by 9:30ish in the morning and haven’t returned until almost 10:00 at night. I. AM. TIRED. And today was no exception.
We headed up to a place called Cascade Springs this morning and spent a few hours hiking around and playing in streams. Then we swung by my grandma’s house on the way home and let the girls play for a few more hours. Then we headed home. It was a relief to actually walk back into my mom’s house before it was dark. But instead of taking advantage of this early entrance home, what did I do???
Packed up my kiddos and went to the park until 8:00 at night! And thus another night of pure exhaustion dominated.
Once we returned home it was baths, an evening snack, brushing teeth, and a little settle down TV time.
Settle down TV time???? Bahahahaha! Emry didn’t get that memo. All I wanted to do was sit down on the couch, relax, and watch the kid dancers on So You Think You Can Dance. Emry had a different idea: grabbing my face and smooching my cheeks, climbing on my back, jumping on my lap, covering herself with a blanket while making monster noises, bouncing on my legs, pulling me down to lay next to her, sitting on my shoulders, and the list goes on. I’m just too tired to type the rest of it out.
See what I mean? Cute, yeah, but also way ANNOYING! I could not wait to put them both to bed.
And I’ll tell you one thing for sure, if I hadn’t of already eaten a little treat after lunch and a scoop of ice cream after dinner, the first thing I would have done once I put those stinkers to bed would have been to grab a Gluten Free Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookie right out of the freezer and gnaw on that piece of heaven until my blood pressure returned to normal.
Instead I mindlessly scrolled through Facebook. Not quite as satisfying, but still effective enough.
I’ll tell you why I would have rather had a cookie.
First of all, they’re peanut butter cookies. I’m a sucker for peanut butter cookies. Really, I’m just a sucker for peanut butter anything. It’s my happy place. But these peanut butter cookies are soft and chewy with a perfect texture like that of a homemade chocolate chip cookie.
If that’s not good enough, these cookies are sweetened with not only regular granulated sugar, but dark brown sugar and honey as well. It brings a different, deeper element of sweetness to these cookies that is downright addicting.
And then there’s the mix-ins. I added roughly chopped honey roasted peanuts to the cookie dough for additional flavor as well as texture. My mom bought the most random, yet most delicious, jumbo sized container of honey roasted peanuts from one of those stores like TJMaxx or Ross. They are perfectly coated, not too sweet with a thin crispy shell. I’ve craved them everyday since being here in Utah.
So why the heck not throw a handful of these honey roasted gems into some cookies??? Done!
Now besides the peanuts, I also added little pieces of gluten free graham crackers and pretzels to the tops of each cookie. It gave the cookies this added element of crunch that you don’t quite get from the peanuts alone.
YUM-O!
And let me tell you, make sure to place them on top of the cookie dough, rather than mixed in, when you bake them. That assures the pretzels and graham crackers stay crisp and crunchy after baking. If you mix them in with the dough, they will get too soft and that’s just a shame. Darn right shame.
So maybe tomorrow, if I have another night of chaos, I’ll reserve treating myself with one of these cookies after bedtime. And maybe I just might put a little scoop of ice cream on top, too. Why the heck not?!
How do you keep your sanity during busy days?
- 1 stick butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup cream peanut butter
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- ⅔ cup sweet sorghum flour
- ⅔ cup brown rice flour
- ⅔ cup white rice flour
- ⅓ cup potato starch
- ¼ cup tapioca starch
- ½ cup coarsely chopped honey roasted peanuts
- ⅓ cup roughly chopped pretzels
- ⅓ cup roughly chopped gluten free graham crackers
- In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream butter, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, and honey until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well incorporated. Add in peanut butter and vanilla and mix on low speed until thoroughly mixed.
- Add salt, baking soda, xanthan gum, sorghum flour, brown rice flour, white rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch and mix until well incorporated. Add chopped peanuts and mix on low speed until evenly distributed. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop walnut sized scoops of dough 2" apart on baking sheet. Lightly press pretzels and graham cracker pieces onto tops of cookie dough.* Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove cookies from oven and slide parchment paper with cookies onto cooling racks. Allow to completely cool. Bake remaining dough.
- Store cooled cookies in airtight container for up to 3 days at room temperature or in freezer for up to 3 months.
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