Almond Flour Flats

I have read that g-free bakers will sometimes used almond flour in lieu of flour, so I ordered some up to give it a try. I knew when I received the almond flour in the mail, that bad times were ahead. Instead of the fine almond meal I was expecting, the package contained what looked like not so finely ground up almonds. I had avoided using the flour for weeks, dreading what was surely to be gritty, crunchy cookies.

I finally gave the flour a whirl today in a g-free choc chip cookie recipe. My fears were justified. The dough looked grainy, the cookies spread out to paper thin wafers, and the texture was like dry meringue. Into the garbage they went! Bleck.

Traditional Choc Chip Cookies

The original recipe for this cookie comes from From Our House to Yours. Again, I used the G-Free Girl's flour ratio of equal parts amaranth, sorghum, tapioca starch, and potato starch. And tweaked the amounts of flour, baking powder, baking soda, etc. As they cooked, the cookies spread and developed a deep, caramelized flavor. They were a little too delicate, though, and tended to break apart rather easily. So not ideal for packaging and shipping.

The monsters you see shying away from these cookies and in the previous post are from a French children's book about monsters who are afraid of the dark.

home on the range cookies

This recipe is based off of my absolute favorite gluten cookie. Walnuts, coconut, oats, 3 types of chocolate chips, yum. I retooled this recipe from Lisa Yockelson's book Chocolate Chocolate and it was a pretty good showing. I used the flour ratios from Gluten Free Girl's 36 hour cookies and adjusted the amounts of flour, baking soda, baking powder, and xantham gum. The cookies were substantial, moist, and not terribly gritty. I even saved a little batter to test some oatmeal raisin cookies. Both choc chip and raisin were delish.

Man Hole Cover Cookies

These cookies are monsters, a recipe from Classic Gluten Free Baking. Five to six inches across and nearly flat as pancakes. The recipe uses shortening instead of butter, but they still had a rich, butterscotch flavor. And they were low on the grainy scale. Yummy though they were, I imagine that they would break down quickly and wouldn't have too long of a shelf life. And without further ado, our lovely cookie models:

12 hour cookies

the strongest contender

This cookie has the most potential yet. I found the recipe on gluten free girl's blog. It combines amaranth flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch. The cookie was a hefty 3 oz. with lots of chocolate and a good chew. The recipe calls for letting the dough rest for a full 36 hours. I wasn't able to cook it at 36 hours, so I tried 12 hours and again at 48. The 12 hour was more grainy than the 48 hour seemed to break down sooner. Perhaps the 36 will be just right. I am beginning to feel like goldilocks! Pictures to come soon.

Almond butter cookies

I have been wanting to experiment with a cookie that didn't rely on any type of flour at all. Enter Karina's Kitchen Sunbutter cookies (in my case almond butter). This cookie contained only almond butter, eggs, brown sugar, honey, baking soda, vanilla, and a dash of salt.

From the picture on her blog, I imagined that these would have the consistency of peanut butter cookies, you know, the ones with the cross hatch? So, either I didn't refrigerate the dough long enough before baking, or almond butter has a more liquid consistency than sunbutter. Because while the cookies had great flavor, they spread out like thin crepe pancakes when baked.

My sister suggested that they'd be yummy wrapped around a scoop of vanilla ice cream, kind of like an almond butter cannoli. Hmm...

The doggie in the last frame is my mom's frenchie, Nigel. He had just gotten stung by a bunch of yellow jackets and was getting sleepy from the benadryl we had given him to counteract the sting. Poor thing:(