I love warm chocolate chip cookies right from the oven. The melted chocolate chips along with the moist cookie that almost melts in your mouth is a little bit of heaven and calls out for a cold cup of milk. Now imagine you were allergic to wheat and weren't allowed to experience that anymore. It's sad isn't it? Well, luckily I'm not allergic to wheat. Unfortunately Kristen is, so we haven't been able to bake chocolate chip cookies in a while. I mean, I guess I could but it wouldn't be very nice of me to torture her like that and I'd really prefer not to sleep on the couch.
Last night, Kristen wasn't feeling very well so she went to bed early. While she attempted to sleep, I put on some Sondre Lerche and set out to attempt a wheat/gluten free chocolate chip cookie that actually tasted like one. We've played around with making gluten free stuff before, with mixed results. Kristen made some scones that tasted pretty good but they just crumbled too easily. She also attempted to make pasta with brown rice flour, and lets just say we won't be doing that again. Last weekend I made some pancakes using gluten free flour and it turned out really well. So with those couple of successes I thought I should be able to do this.
Earlier in the day I found a recipe from Epicurious for chocolate chip cookies that called for the use of a brown rice flour mix that included tapioca flour and potato starch. Using this as my template I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on various flours and xantham gum, none of which was very cheap. So, while Sondre crooned in the background I went about making my brown rice flour mix, creaming my butter and sugar, and combining all of my dry ingredients. As I assembled the ingredients into a cookie dough, there was noticeable difference between cookie dough with wheat flour and this wheat free/gluten free dough. It had an elastic quality to it, as opposed to regular dough that is a little stiffer. Because of the dough consistency I decided to give them a little more room on the cookie sheet when I baked them, expecting them to spread out a bit more. They browned much quicker than I expected them to but I remembered reading that tapioca flour helps promote browning.
When I normally bake cookies, I tend to pull them out before they're completely baked through. The main reason for this is because they continue to cook after you pull them out so if you leave them in the oven until they're completely done, they'll be overcooked by the time you get to eat one. Using this same method, I pulled them out while they were still a little blonde and moist in the center. Seeing they hadn't spread as much as I thought they might, I put the next sheet, crammed with cookies, in the oven.
By this time Kristen had gotten up to see what I was doing. After letting the cookies cool a little bit, I let her give them a try. When trying to get them off the sheet, we immediately noticed that they fell apart very easily while they were still warm. But that didn't stop us from giving them a taste. I asked Kristen if she thought they tasted like real cookies and she gave me the thumbs up. After eating a second cookie she headed back to bed. The main thing I noticed about the texture was that appeared to be a little grainy, I figured it was probably due to some of the flours and starches that were used. Maybe if they had a chance to rest more the cookie would firm up and the texture would improve. Another thought was maybe I should let them bake a little longer.
I let the second batch stay in the oven a little longer. When I pulled them out I was worried I had let them bake too long as they went a little past golden. As I attempted to get them onto the cooling rack I noticed the color wasn't a good indicator of doneness as they still appeared to be very moist. It was kind of mess moving them as I had put too many cookies on the sheet this time and some of them had merged together. There was also the same problem of them being very fragile while they were still warm. Tasting one from this batch I noticed the grainy texture was much improved, but not gone entirely. The last batch was now in the oven.
I let the final 8 cookies get to the same brownness of the previous batch before pulling them out. While they cooled I went back to the first batch and noticed that they had firmed up nicely. The texture also seem to have improved. With that I set off for bed, hoping as the cookies rested over night all the issues would disappear.
This morning I was not disappointed. The cookies held up nicely and the graininess from the night before was completely gone. I would wager that most people wouldn't be able to tell these cookies were wheat and gluten free. The ones from the second and third batches were crispy at the edges and chewy in the center. All in all, I think this would be recipe we'll be making again in the future.
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