Vegan Gluten Free Fruity Peanut Butter Oatmeal Mounds

Late Thursday night (9pm: not that late, but hey – I’m a working woman now) I scoured the web a little desperately to find a recipe that could hold up to three very important qualifications:

1. Must be gluten-free (to accommodate for my co-worker’s gluten intolerance) 
2. Must be dairy-free (she’s lactose-intolerant too – talk about high maintenance!) 
3. Must call for ONLY ingredients that I already had on hand 

Thank goodness I found a recipe for Vegan Gluten-free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies during a Big Bang Theory commercial break!

Packed with everything I like to put in my morning bowl of oatmeal, these Vegan Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Banana Apple Oatmeal Cookies just might turn into breakfast! Lets call them (VGF?) Fruity Peanut Butter Oatmeal Mounds for short since instead of flattening out in the oven, they kept their shape pretty well. I attribute this to the fact that each cookie is essentially a spoonful of peanut butter with some stuff mixed in. Sounds like peanut butter heaven, right? They were also incredibly easy to make!

(Vegan Gluten-Free) Fruity Peanut Butter Oatmeal Mounds: (adapted from www.confessionsofachocoholic.com)
Makes about 30 small cookies

• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
 (check label to ensure gluten-free) 
• 1 cup peanut butter 
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
 
• 2 small bananas, mashed
 
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
 
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1 small apple, finely diced 

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 
• Combine all the ingredients in a big mixing bowl (I said it was easy! NOTE: helpful to mash banana first, then add other ingredients, then add apples last)
• Use a tablespoon to evenly distribute dough onto a cookie sheet 
• Bake for 15 minutes 
• Cool for 5-10 minutes and then move to cooling rack to cool completely 

NOTE: Many recipes on the blogosphere boast of “one bowl recipes,” meaning all ingredients are mixed in just one bowl – go figure. Essentially, there is no separate bowl for sifting flour or beating egg whites or anything like that. All ingredients mixed exclusively in one bowl = one bowl recipe. 

...This is a one bowl recipe!

However, these blogs often fail to mention all of the other utensils you have to dirty to make a dough or batter. This one used 2 measuring cups, 1 set of measuring spoons (2 of the spoons), a knife to scrape the peanut butter out of the cup, and a fork to mash everything together. SIX kitchen tools to wash. Do yourself a favor (this time and often) and line your baking pan with parchment paper so you have one less thing to soak/wash.

Happy Baking!

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