My son loves fun little treats that he can pick up in his hands and feed himself. I try to make them not only yummy but healthy.  We wanted to bake something together this morning so I thought I would make the peanut butter cookie recipe out of my Just Good Energy book.  I took my original recipe and created a gluten-free version.

To be honest, I was also out of some of the key ingredients so I had to be creative. I decided to use coconut flour and tapioca flour (both gluten-free). The coconut flour made them incredibly moist! I was out of raw honey and yacon syrup so I made a pureed date paste – added a caramel flavor. Check out my new recipe…

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/8 cup coconut or grapeseed oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened, organic natural peanut butter
• 3/4 cup date paste (see directions below)
• 1/4 cup date or brown sugar or xylitol
• 1 1/2 tsp egg replacer powder or 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup coconut flour (see directions below)
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup gluten-free flour such as millet, amaranth or quinoa (if you don’t have these flours you can use part tapioca and part coconut flour)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 tsp Celtic Sea Salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place about 3/4 cup dates in a bowl of hot water and set aside while preparing recipe
3. In a blender or processor, grind shredded coconut until it is a fine powder (you might need to add small amounts of water at a time to help the grinding process)
4. In a bowl mix the dry ingredients
5. Stir in the wet ingredients
6. Pour out the hot water from the bowl of dates and place dates in a blender along with about 1/4-1/3 cup water or coconut milk.  Blend on high until it forms a paste – add more liquid if needed.
7. Stir the pured dates into the cookie mixture.
8. Grease a cookie sheet with coconut or grapeseed oil
9. Shape the dough into 1-2 inch balls and place the balls on the baking sheet about 3 inches apart.
10. With a fork or your fingers, slightly flatten the dough.
11. Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool on wire racks.

*Makes 2 dozen

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5. Gluten-Free Butternut Quinoa