Girl and Her Kitchen Welcomes Amy…Our Guest Gluten Free Blogger! She is amazing in the kitchen creating the most delicious gluten free foods you will ever try. Enjoy her first guest post, along with a mouthwatering recipe for gluten free peanut butter blossom cookies. Read on…and enjoy!–Heather 
I started gluten free baking over three years ago when, on the advice of a chiropractor, we eliminated wheat from my then three-year-old son’s diet. I loved to bake and was learning to enjoy cooking, but I didn’t know anything about the gluten-free world. Gluten-free food choices at the grocery store were still limited and those that were available were just not worth the money. So I set out to research the art of gluten-free baking and found the book, Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise G. Roberts. This book has plenty of recipes to try, but more importantly, it teaches you a few of the keys to successful gluten-free baking. After reading this book and several others that didn’t quite measure up to Roberts’, I tried a few of her recipes but still longed for some of my wheat classics. I grabbed all of my favorite recipes from my recipe box (yes, I still have a box filled with index-sized cards containing scribbles from several different family members) and started ‘converting’ them to gluten-free goodies. I loved re-writing my grandmother’s and even great-grandmother’s recipes , mixing the ingredients together in my ‘lab’ and testing them out on my ‘subjects’ (read, family). It reminded me of my former professional days building, testing and manufacturing everything from silicon memory chips for computers to hand-held power tools. Over time, and through much iteration, most people could not tell the wheat was missing, and some even requested the gluten-free version. Although my family is not 100% gluten-free today, we are working to move back to that diet. I’m still working through my recipe box and am always tweaking every day recipes to suit our gluten-free needs, and hope to fully launch a gluten-free bakery business in the near future.
Below is one of the first recipes I ‘converted’ to gluten-free, Peanut Butter Blossoms.
Peanut Butter Blossoms
1/2 cup coconut oil (or shortening)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup brown rice flour blend
1/4 tsp xantham gum
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 bag of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses
Preheat oven to 375 F. Unwrap Hershey Kisses and put in a small bowl for later. Grease a large cookie sheet with coconut oil or shortening. Cream coconut oil (or shortening), sugar and brown sugar together in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Add peanut butter and mix well. Add egg and vanilla and continue to mix well. In a separate medium bowl, mix together flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. Roll dough into 1” balls and place them about 2” apart on the cookie sheet. Bake in oven for 8 – 9 minutes. Immediately remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack.Immediately after placing cookies on cooling rack and cookies are still warm, gently press one Hershey Kiss in to the center of each cookie. Allow cookies to cool completely. Store cookies in an air tight container for up to three days.
AMY
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