The Best Vegan, Gluten-Free PB Cookies

The Best Vegan, Gluten-Free PB Cookies

I’ve got to post something kind of healthy. It’s been candy bars and cola all week long. Consider this recipe equally delicious, but a little less crazy than black cherry cola cake and Baby Ruth brookies.

Of course, it’s a peanut butter recipe. I have a rule when it comes to gluten-free baking: chocolate or peanut butter (or both) has to make an appearance. I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t mastered the GF yellow cake. It’s on my baking bucket list, but as yet, no progress. I’ll keep working on it.

Chocolate and peanut butter are both strong flavors, and they work well with my favorite of all gluten-free flours: oat flour. It has to be certified GF, by the way. Just remember that. I wouldn’t put oat flour in more delicately-flavored desserts, but in peanut butter cookies? Fo sho. For an added bonus, these puppies just happen to be vegan. Eat that, all y’all!

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Cinnamon Chocolate “Quesadillas”

Cinnamon Chocolate “Quesadillas”

So I speak enough Spanish to know that quesadillas contain cheese. These do not. But the concept is the same, so I’m cheating a little!

My third (and not final, one more Monday) Cinco de Mayo offering are these easy dessert…quesadillas? Tortillas with a rich cinnamon chocolate filling?

Who cares what they’re called? As Shakespeare said, roses are cool even if they’re not called that. That’s exactly the way he phrased it. And while I wish my name had been different, I’m still me.

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Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Every now and then, I treat myself to a cinnamon raisin bagel spread thickly with cream cheese. I don’t make this myself. Oh, no. I go to the local bagel place so they can do it right. If I were to make the sandwich, the cream cheese would not be as generously doled out. I’d be too stingy.

If I want a less indulgent version of that sandwich, I bake cinnamon raisin bread with whole wheat flour (mostly) and spread it with light cream cheese. It does the trick! Because really, what is better than freshly baked bread?

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Flourless Chocolate Chewies

Flourless Chocolate Chewies

This post is for my buddy Sarah.

See, Sarah has been looking for a recipe for these cookies for quite a while, and I’ve been promising to get on it. Well, it’s been about a year since I said that, so better late than never. I hope.

For pretty much my entire teaching career (minus the three years I spent at my first school), I’ve spent my early mornings with Sarah. She’s the person I talk to first every day between Monday and Friday, and it’s kind of a ritual for us to catch up before heading off to our classrooms to teach.

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Peanut Butter (Reduced) Sugar Cookie Bars

Peanut Butter (Reduced) Sugar Cookie Bars

A few months ago, a reader wrote in to ask if I ever make recipes that are lower in sugar. To be honest, I typically don’t. My dessert approach is extreme, but to clarify, my lifestyle doesn’t reflect what I do on this site.

I love dessert. And so when I enjoy it, which is every day, I enjoy it at its best. But I also do so in moderation. Every recipe on this site gets tested by yours truly, but after those initial bites, the rest goes to other people. Sometimes I eat quite a bit more than a few bites, or something is just too amazing to give away. But I also temper that with lean proteins, veggies, and a daily and extremely rigorous exercise schedule.

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Apple Snack Cake

Apple Snack Cake

Snack cakes are great. Growing up, I was a big Little Debbie’s fan. Swiss Fudge Rolls? Heck yeah! Oatmeal cream pies? That was basically lunch during my high school years.

The problem with the packaged snack cakes is that they are kind of full of really bad stuff. Like that “crème” filling they all boast? Yeah. That’s made of animal fat, or some kind of hydrogenated something. Have it now and then. But we’re not in high school anymore, so eating it every day is not advisable.

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Pumpkin Snack Cake

Pumpkin Snack Cake

I love the idea of a cookie jar. Growing up, that wasn’t something we had in our house. We had plenty of dessert options, mind you. Just not an actual jar with cookies inside. As a result, it’s always been sort of a dream for me to have a cookie jar.

Except, well, they’re often ugly. And breakable. And most aren’t airtight, so the cookies go bad faster. And when kids get home from school (or their exhausted teacher mom), a cookie isn’t necessarily the answer. Sometimes you want cake. Amazing snack cake. No, not Little Debbie’s (though I do miss those hydrogenated suckers). Healthy, delicious, homemade pumpkin snack cake.

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Vegan Chocolate Cake

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I hate epic fails.

Yep, my caramel apples, so lovingly planned to go up today for the first day at school, tanked. See, I had this massive migraine yesterday and I tried (smarty that I am) to make caramel apples while lights were flashing in my field of vision and my head was pounding.

So, yeah. Caramel apples for another day! Something to look forward to, right?

In the meantime, there’s this cake. I love this cake. It’s vegan and gluten-free, but it’s so incredibly delicious. Sounds wrong, I know, but it’s true!

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Skinnier PB Oreo Mini-Cheesecakes

Skinnier PB Oreo Mini-Cheesecakes

I love riddles. Really, they’re fun!

What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning? Um…I’ll get back to you.

Why do men only eat one bite of dessert and leave the rest? Because they’re from another planet. I think there’s a book about that.

Why don’t I sound like Idina Menzel when I sing Let it Go? Because I was never married to Taye Diggs.

What do you do with leftover cheesecake batter? Make these!

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PB Oreo Frozen Yogurt Shake

PB Oreo Frozen Yogurt Shake

You’d think I would’ve learned by now. You know, how to stand upright and walk without incident. Turns out, it ain’t so easy.

A year ago, I was running. But then a weird fluke fall led to a hip break, and then a foot break, so I’ve been cross-training and strength training for several months. The one day I tried running again I fell over. Again. Yes, it’s definitely me. Can’t blame the even suburban terrain on this one!

So the other day I was just walking, heading calmly to my weekly voice lesson, and down I went. I gotta tell you, I was pretty embarrassed. Especially because I wiped out right in front of a whole group of ballet dancers. Nothing is more humiliating then falling over in front of a group of stick-thin, graceful women who have body coordination. So as soon as my lesson ended, I ran home and made this fro yo shake to recover my sense of equilibrium.

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