The Great Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment

Each month this quarter, the Student Dietetic Association (SDA) at Ohio State has been volunteering one night to prepare a home-cooked meal for the residents of the Ronald McDonald House of Columbus.  We had a great experience in January, made chicken parmesan, salad, and several of us baked brownies ahead of time.  I decided to make black bean brownies (which also happen to be gluten free), and we had one gluten-free mother thanking us profusely because she hadn't been able to eat brownies in forever.  It was a truly rewarding experience!

So we're going back again tomorrow to cook for them, and the dessert of choice this time is cookies.  I've never tried my hand at gluten free chocolate chip cookies before, so I figured this would be a good experiment.  I love experimenting with different (and healthier!) ingredients in baked goods and seeing what happens.

I stole the gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe from the King Arthur flour website...   

1 cup butter (I use Smart Balance buttery sticks -- it has omega-3 fats and NO trans fats!)

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons gluten free vanilla extract (pure vanilla extract is gluten free)

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 1/3 cups King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose Flour or brown rice flour blend (I could not find either of these in the store, so I got Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose baking flour -- it's a mix of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour.)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips -- extra antioxidants!)

 (I left out the optional nuts.)

Directions

1) Beat the butter, sugars, vanilla and salt till fluffy.

2) Beat in the eggs one at a time, being sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl midway through to make sure everything is well combined.

3) Whisk together the flour or flour blend, xanthan gum, baking powder, and baking soda.

4) Beat the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then blend in the chocolate chips and nuts. Again, scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to be sure everything is well blended.

5) Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour, or for up to 2 days. (I refrigerated it for about 3 hours, and kept the extra dough in the fridge between baking -- it seemed to improve the fluffiness of the cookies as the dough got colder.)

6) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a couple of baking sheets, or line with parchment.

7) Scoop tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here. Leave space between the cookies so they can spread.  (They are not kidding when they say these cookies can spread!  Without gluten holding them together, they did bake up fairly flat.  But using a tablespoon measuring spoon worked well for dishing out the dough.)

8) Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let rest on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, to set, before transferring to racks to cool completely. Or allow them to cool right on the baking sheets.

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Just as a warning to folks who like to eat the raw cookie dough, these tasted a little odd to me.  I think it may have been from the Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour, since it is mainly a bean-based flour the dough has a beany aftertaste.  But they baked up nicely and have a wonderful buttery, melty chocolate taste baked!  Other than the fact that they bake up to be rather flat cookies, I would not know they were gluten free!  Definitely a delicious experiment, hopefully the cookies will go over well tomorrow.