Chocolate Chip Cookies

Though I tend to avoid baking like the plague, even a bah-humbug like me can succumb to preparing the occasional tasty treat. Especially when it’s even easier than traditional baking! The secret to the simplicity here is almond flour. Think about this: have you ever eaten a peanut butter cookie? They’re usually made without flour — naturally gluten-free! — yet they come out chewy and tasty. They are by all accounts “real” cookies, appreciated by gluten-lovers around the world.

But what is peanut butter, really? It’s peanuts, ground up, with a little extra oil. Grind up those peanuts just a little less, and you have a nut flour instead of a nut butter. So it should be no surprise that what is essentially an almond-butter cookie comes out delicious and moist, just like its peanutty counterpart. The advantages of working with almond flour instead of just buying a jar of almond butter are that it’s cheaper, you can use the almond flour for drier baked goods like pie crusts, and the final product has an authentic “crumb” feel to it while still being moist and chewy.

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When you’re baking with almond flour, there’s simply no better source than The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. This one’s got everything from the basics all the way up to the ridiculously-named clafoutis. Most recipes are dairy-free, and the ones that aren’t are very easy to substitute with coconut milk or almond milk. Anyway, this cookie recipe came from that cookbook, in case you hadn’t guessed. Start with 2 1/2 cups of almond flour…

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Then mix in 1/2 teaspoon of pure baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

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I use this powdered vanilla, but the Adam’s Extract liquid vanilla also says gluten-free right on the label. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] Of course if you’re using liquid, you’ll want to add it to your wet ingredients instead of your dry. Either way, it’s 1 Tablespoon.

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For your wet ingredients, blend together 1/2 cup of grapeseed oil (or another kind of oil, but grapeseed is very healthy…)

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And 1/2 cup of either agave nectar or honey, your choice. I’ve made it both ways. The agave is more expensive, but the honey has a more distinctive flavor that you may or may not want in your final cookies.

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Add your wet ingredients to your dry, and mix together very well.

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Don’t forget to fold in your chocolate chips. Enjoy Life is one brand of GFCF chocolate chips, or you can do what I did here and just chop up a dairy-free organic chocolate bar I happened to get at my local health food store. (They were giving them away as part of a promotion, which is actually what inspired me to make this batch of cookies in the first place.)

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You’re not going to be able to roll this batter into balls with your hands; just glop it onto the cookie sheet with a spoon. The recipe claims you can get 30 cookies out of this batch, but at the size I make them it’s usually more like 12, so adjust your spoonful size as necessary.

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They should melt out flat in the oven, but I usually feel the need to primp them into more of a cookie shape anyway.

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Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. The recipe calls for 7-10 minutes, but my somewhat gigantic cookies take more like 12-15. Make sure you let them cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet, because they’re extremely soft straight out of the oven. Now if you’ll excuse me, I can’t look at this picture anymore, I have to go make another batch.

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Happy Eating!

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar or honey
1 TBS Adam’s Extract vanilla
1/2 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips