Easy Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (High Altitude Baking)

Easy Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies ready from start to finish in < 30 minutes. Gluten-free plus instructions for high altitude baking with a link to instructions for baking at sea level.

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Easy Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (High Altitude Baking)

Easy gluten-free flourless peanut butter cookies that are irresistible. Instructions includes adjustments for high altitude baking. This high altitude cookie recipe was inspired by a Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie on the Shockingly Delicious blog. Check out her recipe for making this at sea level!

Prep Time15

Cook Time13

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: flourless peanut butter cookies

Servings: cookies

Calories: 129.8kcal

Author: Susan Pridmore

Ingredients

1 large egg
¾ cup white sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter, ideally a kind that doesn't include sugar, salt or palm oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ + ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons vanilla Greek yogurt optional, only for baking at high altitude
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons Maldon's Sea Salt Flakes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350˚F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. If you only have 1 cookie sheet, just line one. (With one cookie sheet, you'll need to take a break between batches to allow the baked cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes.)
Using a hand-held mixer, whip together the egg, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla extract, baking soda and Greek yogurt in a medium sized bowl.
Fold in the chocolate chips using a rubber spatula.
Weigh a 1 ounce lump of cookie dough, and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough, and arrange on the 2 cookie sheets separating them 2 inches apart from each other. Gently roll each one into a ball. See the Tips for why is a good idea to weigh your cookies! If you don't plan to weigh the cookies, alternatively use a small ice cream scoop.
Gently press down on each cookie with a fork. Re-mold any edges that crack. Lightly sprinkle with Maldon's Salt Flakes or very coarse salt.
Slide one cookie sheet into the oven and bake for 13 minutes. Remove and slide in the second cookie sheet for 13 minutes.
The cookies will be very soft when you pull them from the oven. Place the hot cookie sheet on a cooling rack. After 5 minutes, remove the cookie sheet from the cooking rack, and gently slide the cookies onto the rack with the parchment paper. Repeat with the second batch of cookies.
The cookies will remain soft enough to slightly fall apart until they fully cool. At that point, they are the perfect soft cookie that holds together very well. Store in a plastic container or plastic bag that seals shut.

Notes

Tips for Success in Making Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Use a type of peanut butter that doesn't include sugar, palm oil or added salt. It should just be peanuts. And the peanut butter should be creamy, not chunky.

The amount of yogurt is small enough that it doesn't matter if you use Greek yogurt or regular. I used Siggi's strained (Greek) yogurt. Feel free to use plain or vanilla flavored.

I always weigh my cookie dough before arranging the cookies on the cookie sheet. A trick I learned from Alice Medrich years ago in culinary school, this is another way of ensuring evenly baked cookies.

Any kind of chocolate chips works here, and many of you may prefer milk chocolate chips with the peanut butter. It's all good, but I admit I prefer Guittard Chocolate Chips over others.

I like to top cookies like this with Maldon Sea Salt Flakes as they stay on the cookies much better than kosher salt or other coarse salts.

Pro-Tip: The Difference Between Baking Sheets and Cookie Sheets

The terms baking sheets and cookie sheets are often used interchangeably, but they're not the same.

Baking sheets have 4 raised rolled edges, making them ideal for roasting veggies, jelly-roll cakes, and sheet pan dinners. The uniformity of the raised edges also helps prevent warping.

Cookie sheets have only 1 raised edge, used as a handle of sorts for sliding the sheet into and out of the oven. This open sheet design provides several benefits you might not be aware of:

Slipping the cookies from the pan onto a cooling rack is much easier than with a rimmed baking pan.
Eliminating 3 of the raised edges frees up more space for more cookies.
A flat sheet without edges provides increased air circulation. This promotes evenly baked cookies.

So next time you bake a batch of cookies, reach for a cookie sheet instead of a baking sheet! You won't be sorry.

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