Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

[marmalady]

My nephew was just diagnosed with a wheat allergy; since he's coming for Thanksgiving, I want to do something special for him - he looooves CC cookies, so I sort of cribbed together this recipe. Not too bad! The baking mix has rice flour in it, so the texture is a little grainy, but they're nice and moist, and adding the molasses really helped, I think.

WHEAT-FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

3 cups Arrowhead Mills All-Purpose baking mix
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup butter – not margarine!!
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tablespoon molasses
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Mix together baking mix, soda and salt, set aside.

In large mixing bowl, blend sugars; add butter and mix to form a grainy paste. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl. Add eggs and vanilla, mix at medium speed til just blended. Do not over mix. Add flour mixture a cup at a time, mixing just to blend – do not overbeat. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.

Drop by rounded tablespoons on ungreased baking sheet, at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 13 minutes; transfer to a cooling rack.

[Piccolina]

Those sound really good marmalady, how sweet of you to make them for you nephew, I'm sure he'll be really touched I've had good success with using pure rice flour in cookie recipes, it's wheat (always read the labels just to double check though, you never know what some brands might add!) free too and is quite easy to find these days at health food stores and many larger grocery stores.

[marmalady]

Does just the rice flour make them 'extra crispy'? I use a little rice flour in my shortbread recipes, and also in the 'cheddar pennies' recipe; seems to make the cookies 'snap'!

[Piccolina]

Yes it can make them a bit crisp...depends on your ratio of liquids, fats and eggs - I find I like rice flour a lot and use it in breads, muffins, etc too.

[Gerrycooks]

Marmalady
I used to follow a gluten free diet. I found that the rice flour in the oriental grocery stores was finer in texture. You can also find tapioca and potato starch in the oriental stores. The flour etc are also much cheaper than those found in health food stores.
A good place to find Gluten Free cookbooks is a used book store. Let me know if you want the titles of the books I have.
There is a great biscotti recipe and an almond cookie that uses 3 ingredients.

[licia]

How much do you pay for rice flour? It seemed quite expensive to me. Over $3.00 for a 24 oz pkg, is that about right?

[marmalady]

That's about right for a health food store, but it should be cheaper if you have an oriental grocery store nearby; look for 'Mochiko flour'; I've found it in a little white box with red and black lettering.