Monster Cookies

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream together butter, sugars, peanut butter and eggs until light.

Add baking soda, vanilla extract, and gluten-free oats and mix on low speed until well mixed.

Stir in chocolate chips or M&M's or both.

Use a cookie scoop to scoop rounded balls of dough and place on lined cookie sheets, flatten them a bit.

Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes or until they don't look gooey in the center. These are better slightly under-cooked than overcooked.

Remove from oven and leave on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before moving cookies to wire racks to cool.

The recipe was adapted from the original by mygluten-freekitchen.com.

When making these for the recipe photo shoot, I totally ran out of M&Ms! Tragic, I know. So, I had to go with just plain chocolate chips, they still taste great, just don't have that pop the M&Ms would have added to the pictures. Either way, these are one of my son's favorite cookies. He compares every other cookie to these like they are true north, "Mommy, I like these cookies but they still are not as good as your monsters" or "these are ALMOST better than your monsters, almost". High praise coming from a 7-year-old.

My son is not Celiac and does not have to eat gluten-free, but that is the thing with these monster cookies, as long as you use gluten-free oats, they are flourless and naturally gluten-free. I like to use this recipe as a base and play with the mix-ins, nuts, granola, seeds, dried fruit, chocolates or candies. There are so many combinations to have fun with! Plain, chocolate chip or the whole pantry, whatever you choose, these cookies will cure your sweet tooth.