cindy's peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars

Hello there!! I'm happy to introduce you to my mother, Cindy.  :)  I've been trying to get her on the blog for a while and she finally emailed me this recipe last week.  It was a blast to spend yesterday afternoon baking, chatting, drinking coffee, and staging this delicious recipe. She taught me everything I know about food and quite a bit about life, but she's here today to share these ridiculous, moist peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars. 

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Hi! Cindy here!  For over a year now gluten has been banned from our home, so we've had to come up with tasty modifications of our favorite foods.  It's been a lot of trial and error.  Some gf recipes just need love (and tweaking) to pass my kids' taste test. Baked goods are especially challenging, but not impossible.  These gluten-free cookie bars taste like classic peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and have a way of disappearing almost as soon as I pull them out of the oven. 

For this recipe, I developed a flour mixture of 1 1/2 cups sorghum flour, 1 cup tapioca starch, and 1/2 cup potato starch.  Unlike brown rice flour, sorghum creates a slightly chewier texture.  This flour mixture is great for any cookie or brownie recipe you want to make gluten-free. 

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salted mini chocolate chip cookie pies

I am a little excited about this pie.  Not going to lie. But first a tinsy confessional...

Well, the horrid truth is that, after being on an elimination diet for 5 weeks and trying to get reacquainted with wheat thrice (yes, thrice), I have a gluten allergy.  I feel so much better; no headaches, stomach aches, or back spasms. 

But this has lead to a series of "fits". 

These fits are usually triggered by some gorgeous picture of some decadent dessert or breakfast food and they go something like this... "Jason! I want real cake, waffles, bread, cupcakes, cookies, biscuits. I don't want to bake cookies out of chick peas or almonds. I DON'T care about oat pancakes."  Then, I stomp around our apartment and try to get Jason to take me to Cracker Barrel as I can "just eat myself to death!" (CB serves breakfast and pie all day.  That's right, pie. all. day. with. pancakes.)  Thankfully, my wise husband rarely listens to anything I say during a fit and my body has been spared the reaction that would follow an onslught of pie, french toast, and waffles.

Well, a fit followed seeing this post for deep dish salted chocolate chip cookie pie on ELR and I knew that this pie was something I needed. Not wanted, NEEDED. So instead of making a mad dash for Cracker Barrel, I started researching how to make it allergy friendly.

This pie is outrageous. Like a super gooey, super cute slice of chocolate-chip cookie heaven. And no gluten. That's right!!! Zero gluten!!! My apartment even smelled like vanilla and butter while it was baking.  Glory!

Ladies and gents, please give a a warm welcome to salted mini chocolate chip pies. (Also known as sanity/allergy acceptance in pie form.)

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strawberry-banana bites

I love cookies.  Warm vanilla, brown sugar, and butter all diffusing as each spoonful of dough bakes into the perfect bite-size treat.  Who doesn't love finding a cookie in their lunch box?  Or cooling by the coffee pot? Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, peanut butter, chocolate crinkles, shortbread.... I love them all. We love them all! 

But, these aren't cookies. They are made of fruit, not delicious layers of butter and sugar.  They're a trick.  See?

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