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:(

Crumbly Magic Blondies

Martha's magic blondies, er, muffins

I tried another recipe from Martha's Cookies book last night: magic blondies. From the picture and description, they promised to be dense, buttery blondies, in cupcake form. These were not. The flavor was good, but the consistency was more like a light, crumbly muffin; also slightly on the dry side.

I used the trusty brown rice flour, tapicoa starch, potato starch mixture, with a 1/2 tsp of xantham gum thrown it. While this combo works well for cookies, I wonder if I need to figure out a different formula for denser baked goods.

Pictures to come tonight.

Milk Chocolate Cookie Gallery

Not Martha's Milk Chocolate Cookies

This week, I revamped a recipe from Martha Stewart's "Cookies" cookbook. Instead of all purpose flour, I used a mix of brown rice flour, potato starch and tapioca flour. I also added a bit of xanthan gum to mimic the elasticity that you would otherwise get from gluten. The cookies had a soft, meringue-y chew with a rich chocolate flavor. Perfect as a cookie sunday with vanilla and fudge swirl ice cream! I'll post pictures in the next couple of days.

Choc Chip Continued

Here are the pictures! I forgot to mention that I changed the original recipe a bit. Less egg, a lot less salt, less time in the oven.

Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies

I won't have pictures up until tomorrow, but I had to write about these cookies immediately! I tried a new recipe tonight from the blog: The Art of Gluten Free Cooking. This one called for a mixture of white rice flour, sorghum flour, and xanthan gum. There isn't any actual butterscotch in the recipe, but the good amount of brown sugar gives the cookies a rich, butterscotch-y flavor. Even after the cookies cooled, they were soft and chewy with a slightly crispy, caramelized base. E didn't even know that they were g-free when I asked him to give them a try!

Day 1: Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

This recipe comes from Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise G. Roberts. It called for brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, GF oats, along with all the usual suspects (brown sugar, eggs, butter, etc). The cookies were DELISH! Chewy, buttery, with only a tiny touch of graininess. I hope to find a finer grind of brown rice flour for next time, which should do the trick.

Prep work

I added a bunch of alternative flours and assorted ingredients to the baking arsenal this week: sorghum, amaranth, tapioca, coconut, white rice and brown rice flours. As well as xanthan gum, guar gum and potato starch.

Before we got started, I wanted to see where the bar was set for g-free cookies. So far I've tried two. The mini-choc chip cookies from Cherry Brook farms were dry and tasted like saw dust. The over-sized choc chip cookie from the Alternative Baking Company (ABC) were off-tasting and somewhat tough. The problem with the ABC cookie, is that they tried to be all things to all people. Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, etc.

I've been looking at a bunch of g-free recipe blogs for tips like Gluten Free Girl and The Art of Gluten-Free Baking. I also picked up Gluten-Free Baking Classics.

I can't wait to get baking!