Fun Food Friday- Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies- Gluten Free

A few things before I get to my Fun Food Friday.  First, I meant to put this cute little story in my Wednesday's blog and forgot.  Micah loves seeing the moon, he calls it the ball in the sky (he hasn't seen it in the dark in a very long time since it stays light so late here so he doesn't understand that it produces light, he just thinks it's a ball hanging in the sky :)).  And he must not have ever noticed it before when it wasn't close to a full moon because Sunday night we were walking home from church and he noticed the moon and exclaimed "Ball in the sky broken!"  We looked and the moon was closer to a new moon, not a full moon so he thought it was broke and was very concerned. :)  Oh the mind of a 2 year old. 
Secondly, I have to tell you if you are looking for a stain remover, I highly recommend Scrubbing Bubbles Kitchen cleaner.  I was buying some a couple months ago (to actually use in the kitchen) and the lady in line behind me told me how much she loved that stuff and how she uses it to get stains out of her clothes.  I didn't think about it again but then Sunday night I fed the boys, then dressed them for church and was quickly getting my things together and when I went to get David he had spit up his sweet potatoes on his nice new church shirt. :(  Of course I didn't have time to change him so I quick wiped it up and away we went to church.  I threw it in the wash when we got home but when I got it out you could still see the spots.  It was then that I remembered what the lady in line behind me said and decided I might as well try the Scrubbing Bubbles.  So I sprayed it on, left it a few minutes, scrubbed it a little, threw it back in the wash and sure enough, it came out with no spots!  And then yesterday Micah got a bloody nose and got blood on his white Micah shirt he's wearing on the picture on the top of this blog.  I thought, oh great, this shirt is done for, but I again sprayed Scrubbing Bubbles Kitchen cleaner on it, threw it in the wash and sure enough, not a trace of blood!  Just had to share that with you in case you are looking for a good stain remover. :)
Okay, on to Fun Food Friday!  Our church, like any good Dutch church :), has cookies and coffee after church every Sunday morning.  My friend Deb and I are in charge of the cookies for this month and decided it would be fun to make all the cookies (most of the time people get the cookies from the local grocery store bakery).  Another friend from church has Celiac Disease which means that she can't have anything with gluten.  So she rarely gets to have cookies after church so I decided to make something she could have.  I love Peanut Butter Blossom cookies but I remember them taking forever to make when I was younger so we only ever made them at Christmas.   But a number of years ago my aunt gave me this recipe for them that was so simple and makes it easy to make them gluten free because it uses Bisquick instead of flour and they have gluten free Bisquick.  So you can make them either way, with gluten free Bisquick or regular and they both taste great!  There are a few things to remember when making something gluten free.  First you want to make sure all of your ingredients are gluten free.  All the brands I used in this recipe were gluten free, so you can always just get the same brands :) or just look on the labels or look it up on-line.  Second, you want to make sure that your kitchen and mixer are sterilized.  If your mixer is like mine, it ends up with flour all over it so you want to make sure you really clean it so none of that flour drops into the cookie dough.  And then when serving the cookies make sure you don't put them next to the other cookies :).  So if you know someone who is allergic to gluten and you want to give them a special treat, this recipe is for you!  Or if you love these cookies and want a super easy way to make them, keep this one close by!

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies- Gluten Free

Ingredients: Bisquick (Gluten Free), Peanut Butter, Vanilla, Sweetened Condensed Milk, Hersey's Kisses, Sugar 

To a mixer bowl add 3/4 cup peanut butter (Jif peanut butter is gluten free)...

*If making gluten free you will want to use a new jar of peanut butter in case you have ever put a knife back in the jar after touching bread

and 1 can sweetened condensed milk (Carnation is gluten free)

Mix together until nice and smooth

add 2 cups of Bisquick...

and 1 teaspoon of vanilla

and mix until all combined

The gluten free Bisquick made the dough a little dry so I added 2 Tablespoons of milk and that did the trick.

To make the cookies use a 1 inch cookie scoop to get some dough...

roll into a ball...

and coat with sugar

Bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes for regular ones and about 14 minutes for the gluten free ones.  They will be a nice golden brown

While the cookies are baking unwrap the chocolate kisses.  If you are not making these cookies gluten free and you have access to Chocolate Stars, I highly recommend using those because then you don't have to unwrap them.  Unfortunately they are made in a factory that processes wheat so you can't use them if you're making these gluten free.

As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven press the kisses into the middle of the cookie.

And there you go, delicious peanut butter blossoms that someone allergic to gluten is able to have!

 

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies*

3/4 cup Peanut Butter

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 cups Bisquick*

1 teaspoon vanilla

sugar to coat cookies

Hersey Kisses/Chocolate Stars

 

Cream together peanut butter and sweetened condense milk.  Add Bisquick and vanilla and mix until all combined*.  Roll into 1 inch balls.  Roll ball in sugar.  Bake at 350 degrees from 8-10 minutes* until lightly browned.  Immediately after taking out of the oven press kisses into the cookies.

 

*To make gluten free use Gluten Free Bisquick (and make sure all other ingredients are gluten free) and add 2 Tablespoons of milk after adding Bisquick and vanilla.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.