Gluten Free Casually: Butterfinger Cookies

Butterfinger Cookies! Everyone at my house loves Butterfinger candy bars. I have tried a couple different recipes for Butterfinger cookies in the past but the taste or texture just wasn't right so I gave up. The other day I found a sale on a 6 pack of Butterfinger candy bars and decided to improvise one of my cookie recipes and see if I could give the Butterfinger cookies one more try! It worked! They were so yummy and a nice change from the every day chocolate chip cookies. (I cut back on some of the butter and added a little bit of peanut butter to give the cookie just the right back ground taste in the cookie. Not overpowering peanut butter...subtle. I did not want it to taste like a peanut butter cookie. I wanted the Butterfingers to be the star in this cookie. I also used all brown sugar for more flavor & chewiness. We thought the final result was a nice, chewy cookie with subtle peanut butter undertones and bits of Butterfinger candy. I think you could also alter this recipe and add only 3 crushed candy bars and add a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips for a nice cookie too!

Butterfinger Cookie Recipe:

2 1/2 cups gluten free flour mix (see my recipe below) or if you don't have a gluten allergy then by all means just use regular flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (or you can substitute raw sugar)
1 stick real butter, softened but not melted
1/4 cup Crisco shortening
1/3 cup peanut butter (either creamy or crunchy will work)
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
6 full size Butterfinger Candy Bars, crushed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the butter, Crisco and peanut butter until creamy. Beat in brown sugar and eggs. Add baking soda, salt and flour. Beat until well mixed. Stir in crushed candy bars. Drop by tablespoonfuls (I use a cookie scoop - looks like a mini ice cream scooper) onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. Do not flatten, leave in little round balls - they will flatten on their own while baking. Bake 10-13 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool on cookie sheets for 10 minutes before removing to cooling racks. (I have not tried cooking these cookies on a cookie sheet without parchment paper. I was too afraid of the cookies sticking and making a big mess. They turned out perfect on the parchment paper!)

Gluten Free Flour Blend Recipe:

1 1/2 cups brown rice flour
1 cup white rice flour (I used sweet rice flour for this batch)
1/2 cup glutinous rice flour (made from sticky rice, gluten free)
1 cup potato starch (not flour)
1/2 cup nonfat dry milk, make sure it is very fine in texture
1 cup corn starch or tapioca starch (I used corn starch for this batch)
3 tbs. xanthan gum

Combine all ingredients together well. I store mine in a glass container and use it in place of regular flour in all my recipes. This particular blend I really like for baked sweet goods.