chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies {gluten-free/dairy-free}

chewy.

the number one most important characteristic of a cookie.  am i right??

these cookies are so incredibly chewy, that when i accidentally left them out on the cooling rack overnight after baking, they were still completely soft and delicious the next day!  seriously amazing.

that being said, i had to add the word chewy into the title of this post.  usually when i see the words peanut butter and cookie next to each other, i think of rock hard hockey pucks with criss-crossed fork marks on top.  the kind of cookie that crumbles in your hand as you take the very first bite.  ugh.

my least favorite cookie ever??  peanut butter.  i’ve always been biased toward oatmeal.  any kind of oatmeal cookie and i’m a happy girl.  until now.

seriously…this recipe will be hard for me to top.  aside from it being about the simplest 6-ingredient cookie recipe ever created, it is gluten free, diary free, and contains no white or brown sugar!!  whaaaatt?!?

a friend or “mate” of mine at the gym (we call her ‘lil england and she has the cutest british accent ever!) asked me to create something for a group of people at her work doing a “biggest loser” competition.  i asked her if i had any restrictions on what i made and she replied with this, *spoken in a british accent,* “no restrictions…just a sweet treat for the team to enjoy and help them realize that we don’t need to use processed rubbish to indulge.”  she’s right.  processed rubbish…it’s what most cookies are made of.

except mine.  mine is made with all natural, organic coconut sugar.

i had a client ask me the other day, “why coconut sugar over other artificial sweeteners?”  the question kind of answers itself.  other sweeteners are artificial…coconut sugar is completely natural and unprocessed.  because coconut sugar is unrefined, it retains all of its natural vitamins and minerals.  there is no other sweetener with the nutrients coconuts brings to the table, so it is my go-to sugar substitute in baking.  coconut sugar is totally diabetic friendly and super easy to swap out with white or brown sugar in any recipe…cup for cup! :)

don’t like the taste of coconut?  here’s some good news: surprisingly, it doesn’t taste “coconutty” at all!

coconut sugar won’t save you calories like chemical sweeteners do, but it has no effect on blood sugar, which means it doesn’t cause insulin spikes.  why should you care about insulin over calories in this situation?  i don’t like to get too technical on people, so i’ll make this really easy for you: high blood sugar = high insulin levels = belly fat.  calories matter, but nutrition trumps calories in my book.

i adapted this recipe from another blogger i stumbled upon whose post was featured next to mine on foodgawker.com recently.  proceed with caution…all her stuff looks so incredibly awesome!!