Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

These peanut butter blondies are my favorite thing today this month.

Do you like peanut butter cookies? Do you love peanut butter cups? These are for you. ❤️

How these sweet peanut butter blondie babies came to be: A looooong time ago, I went on a hunt for a grain-free peanut butter cookie recipe. I have a few of these recipes stashed away, and have tweaked them and toyed with them until I found my go-to combination of ingredients. The cookies themselves call for only 6 ingredients, which is good because it means late-night cookie cravings are easy to quench (you know, good but also bad 😆).

And those six ingredients? You probably have them in your pantry right now: peanut butter, salt, vanilla, almond flour, honey and (in your fridge) an egg.

✨ Do you know what makes you feel like Wonder Woman (or Superman)? When you hear the words "I could really go for a cookie right now," and then you magically pull a fresh batch of cookies from the oven in 30 minutes. ✨

It’s possible with these bars. Cheers to that!

Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

When they are fresh from the oven, these blondies are super soft, but as they cool they firm up, becoming fudgy. They melt away in your mouth… all that peanut butter goodness — oh gosh, just writing this makes me want to make a fresh batch right away!

If you prefer cookies… You can plop the dough by the spoonful on the a cookie sheet, but I have found that they're even better as bars (AKA blondies), because it gives them the ultimate fudgy center. Also, it’s less work (hoorah for that!).

These peanut butter bars are the household favorite around here — everyone is excited when these come out of the oven.

AND if you’re thinking, I do love cookies — but I don’t need all that sugar right now. WELL GET READY, because these call for 1/3 cup honey! That's it. No refined sugar. Cut into 9 squares, each bar has less sugar than a LÄRABAR or even an RXBar. So bake away my friends! These cookie bars will change your life. They certainly have changed mine.

Salted Fudgy Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

The finishing touch on these bars is a sprinkle of salt. While I was in Monterey last month, I came by some fancy salts that were 75% off. Normally I'd resist the urge to buy luxury salt, especially when flying Frontier Airlines with nothing but a "personal item" (uuugh). But 75% off was too much to pass up. 

These blondies are sprinkled with the coffee infused salt, but you can use any salt and get delicious results. You can even play around with sprinkling different salts on top, and decide which you like the most! I sprinkled my most recent batch of these cookies with vanilla salt (affiliate link!) and it was stellar. Try fluer de sel (affiliate link!) or even make your own coffee-infused salt.

Salted Fudgy Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

Grain-Free Peanut Butter Blondies

Published January 25, 2018 by
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Serves: 16   |    Total Time: 35 minutes



Ingredients:

  • 1 cup peanut butter (smooth, natural & organic— stir it well)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • For the chocolate drizzle:
  • 1 ounce chocolate (I used a chopped up 88% dark chocolate bar, but use whatever you like most)
  • 1 sprinkle finishing salt, such as vanilla salt (affiliate link!), fleur de sel (affiliate link!), espresso salt (affiliate link!), or homemade coffee salt

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a 9x9 inch glass baking dish with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine peanut butter, egg, honey, vanilla, and salt. Stir until completely combined and smooth. Dough should be quite sticky, but not runny: when you lift a spoonful from the bowl it should not drip.
  3. Press dough into prepared baking dish in an even layer. Then, place baking dish in oven and bake for 20-23 minutes. The blondies should be puffed in the middle, and golden on the edges. They’ll still be quite soft at this point. Allow blondies to cool in pan for 10 minutes.
  4. While to blondies are cooling, make the chocolate drizzle: place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 30 seconds and stir. Then, heat for 15 seconds, and stir, repeating (heat for 15 seconds, stir) until chocolate is completely melted and glossy. Use a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the bars in a criss-cross pattern. Now, sprinkle with finishing salt of your choice. Allow to cool 5 more minutes.
  5. Slice blondies into squares, and serve. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

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