Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Our flat is starting to feel more like a home! On Friday, I baked peanut butter cookies and it made the apartment smell wonderful. Baking, the yummy smells, and having home made food made the apartment feel more like mine. We’re also starting to get settled by putting our knickknacks out and decorating our place.

We can finally start decorating because on Saturday, our landlord came and furnished our apartment! Yes, to answer your unspoken question, we’d been living in our apartment for a week without furniture. Now, it’s starting to feel more like a real place to live because we can put things away and actually sit and relax other places besides the air mattress.

While our landlord was furnishing our apartment, Ryan and I got the heck out of there and went to Camden Market. This place blew us away! There were so many stalls and so many ways to explore. I lusted after a hand-made black leather purse. I ooo-ed over a knit baby hat with a double-decker bus pattern, for all the many friends I have back home who are expecting. We saw antique cameras, books, board games, jewelry, scarves. It was glorious. We bought a painting of a Big Ben cityscape to decorate the bare walls of our apartment.

While the vendor was mounting the painting, we went to have lunch. We were overwhelmed! We stood on a walkway and looked down at the food vendors. There were so many choices and we decided to do a lap before committing. We found Polish, Peruvian, Turkish, Mexican, Spanish, Jamaican, and Argentinian foods just to name a few. Everything looked amazing, nothing looked mediocre. We decided to each get something different and share. I can’t wait to go back and eat some more.

Even though Ryan and I were out an about this weekend, these cookies didn’t make it until the end of the day Sunday. We devoured them! Also, these cookies are gluten-free and tasty! I know more and more people  who are gluten-free, but I have a hard time finding a good gluten-free cookie recipe. These should fit the bill. This might ruin the gluten-free factor, but these are also great when you put a little nutella on them and make a peanut butter nutella cookie sandwich.

Adapted from pbs.org

Ingredients:

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 cup sugar (the cookies are pretty sweet this way, I think you can go down to 3/4 cup if you want)

1 large egg

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg.

3. In a large bowl, mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.

4. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Take about 1-2 tbsp of dough and make it into a rough circle. Place it onto a cookie sheet. Arrange cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart from each other.

5. Use the tines of the fork to make a hash mark pattern on  your cookies. You don’t have to do this, but it seems to be part of every peanut butter cookie recipe.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

7. Let cool.

8. If desired, spread nutella onto a flat side of a cookie and top with another cookie. Peanut butter nutella sandwich cookie!

Messy level: One spoon. Four ingredients and all you have to do is stir, shape cookies, and bake! What could be easier?