Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies : Ugly Duckling Bakery

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These almond flour peanut butter cookies are soft and chewy and packed with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. They are super easy to make and are sure to become a household favorite.

The recipe is a gluten-free adaptation of my house cookie. That peanut butter cookie is a soft and thick double peanut butter cookie with chocolate and peanut butter chips that I probably bring to every picnic and every cookie swap.

Readers have asked me to adapt some of my recipes to be gluten-free. This almond flour peanut butter chocolate chip cookie is the first of those recipes.

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Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
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Tips and tricks

Substituting almond flour for wheat flour

Almond flour is just finely ground, blanched almonds. It contains more fat and protein compared to wheat flour and works well as a gluten-free substitute.

Tip from the wise quacker: when substituting almond flour for wheat, the general rule is to use an equal volume of almond flour. If you switch out a small proportion of the flour in your baked goods, you won’t see much difference. However, cakes and muffins made with all almond flour may not rise as high. And cookies made with all almond flour will spread more.

You can see an example of a partial substitution in these shortbread Linzer cookies, where one quarter of the flour in my shortbread cookies is replaced with finely ground almond flour. But it is definitely true that making these peanut butter cookies with almond flour makes them flatten out when baked, though they still remain soft.

Step by step

These almond flour peanut butter cookies are mixed in exactly the same way as their wheat flour counterparts. First, sift the dry ingredients into a small to medium bowl (Panel #1, below), and set the bowl aside. Next, cream together the peanut butter, butter, and sugars (Panel #2).

four panels showing the steps making these almond flour peanut butter cookies.

Beat in the egg, milk, and vanilla (Panel #3, above), and then add in the dry ingredients (Panel #4). Add the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips by hand. Don’t overmix!

Use a medium cookie scoop (#30 or #40) to scoop one and half to two tablespoon balls of cookie dough onto your cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat. The cookies on the cookie sheet pictured below are going into the freezer for future baking. If you’re baking your peanut butter cookies right away, you’ll want to space the cookie balls at least two inches apart.

scoops of almond flour peanut butter cookie dough on a cookie sheet.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until they are just barely starting to harden and the edges just starting to barely brown. They will continue to cook as they cool, so please don’t overbake them!

Storage

Store at room temperature for one to two weeks. Baked cookies can be frozen, but the cookies will taste better if you freeze them as unbaked cookie dough balls.

To freeze these almond flour peanut butter cookies, scoop them onto a baking sheet so they are close but not touching. Put the sheet into the freezer overnight and then transfer the cookie balls to a freezer bag for 3 to 6 months. Bake at the same temperature for a minute or so longer than specified.

Variations and substitutions

Add a half cup of chopped, toasted nuts in place of the peanut butter chips.

FAQs

What brand of almond flour do you use?

I always use Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine Almond Flour. You can use this flour to make macarons, to rim the glass of my Cherry Bakewell Cocktail, or in those Linzer cookies that I mentioned above.

Can I eat raw cookie dough made with almond flour?

Wheat flour has been associated with outbreaks of enteric bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli. So the FDA says not to eat raw flour, even after home treatment. Although almond flour doesn’t have the same risk, this cookie dough does have raw egg, which is of course also associated with risk for food-borne infections. Read more here about other surprising hazards in the kitchen.

Do peanut butter cookies made with almond flour taste different than cookies made with wheat flour?

Almond flour is made from ground, blanched almonds, so it will taste just like almonds. You won’t notice any difference in these peanut butter cookies, but you might in cookies or other baked goods that have more subtle flavors.

Check out other recipes from the uglyducklingbakery cookie archives including these peanut butter Rice Krispie treats, pie crust cookies, ube crinkles, caramel chip chocolate cookies, or lemon lavender cookies.

Love peanut butter? Try one of these other peanut butter recipes like this peanut butter chocolate ganache drip cake, peanut butter waffles, or a savory peanut sauce for swimming rama.