Cashew Butter Cookies

I’m not sharing a recipe with you today.  I’m sharing an idea, and that idea is cashew butter.  Ok, so it’s not an idea, it’s an ingredient.  I’m not sharing with you a recipe because this is one I want to adapt to be gluten free first.  This is my dad’s grandmother’s peanut butter cookie recipe, and it’s totally glutenicious.  I’m pretty sure that’s one of the main reasons why these are so delectably soft compared to traditional flourless peanut butter cookies, and I want to be able to present to you the same quality of awesomeness that comes with the original recipe.

The last time I made similar cookies (Almond Butter Cookies) I got lucky when I added in flour and they happened to work.  This time I don’t want to get lucky.  I want to get it right and know exactly why it works.  And when I do I will share with you her secret family recipe, GF style

I want to talk to you about cashew butter.  I personally love it for its subtlety.  While cashews are very much a distinct tasting tree nut, ground up as a butter their flavor mellows and melts into whatever you make.  It was an easy swap to take such a classic family recipe and switch out the peanut butter for cashew butter, and I have to say that the result was a definite improvement upon perfection.  If you didn’t know better, it might be a bit difficult to place the flavor of these cookies as being specifically cashews, but it would surely be easy for you to recognize a depth and richness to their taste – and with their famously (well amongst my family) soft texture, well, let’s just say you might not look at other cookies the same way again

So instead of a recipe, I leave with you a challenge.  A challenge to experiment.  One of my favorite gluten free blogging friends, Aubree of Living Free, first introduced me to the concept of cashew butter back when she hosted it as the Blogger Secret Ingredient one week, and I’ve been meaning to use it ever since.  While I was home visiting my parents, I took advantage of my short time with them to try something risky and take a little gamble.  Luckily, my dad was immediately on board with the idea, and executed the masterful batch of cookies you see above.  Now you must understand that altering such a long-standing family favorite recipe is a big deal.  There’s a lot of value placed in such traditions where I come from.  But for the sake of enjoying the taste of cashew butter in a sweet melt-in-your-mouth, feel-like-you’ve-died-and-gone-to-heaven cookie?  It was so worth it.

I just can’t wait to work on making this gluten free, and then share it with you!  But hey, while you’re waiting, go get some cashew butter, and sub it in your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.  Trust me, you won’t be disappointed