Thursday, September 29, 2011

Gluten Free Power Cookies


I'm not gluten free, but I am wheat-free and therefore love to experiment with gluten free baking. I typically use oat bran flour or brown rice flour in place of wheat flour, which seems to work well for me when I make cookies, muffins, and pizza, but a couple weeks ago I wanted to try making a flour "blend" with xanthan gum as the replacement for gluten. Xanthan gum is meant to replace the gluten and therefore it helps add the structure, elasticity, and viscosity back into gluten free products or baked goods. For my first truly gluten-free baking experiment I used the following gluten free flour combination;

Brown Rice Flour (a whole grain!)
Tapioca Flour (gives a nice chewy texture)
Xanthan gum

When using this blend, for every cup of wheat flour called for in the original recipe you instead use 1/2 cup of brown rice flour, 1/2 cup of tapioca flour, and 1 tsp. xanthan gum.

Gluten Free Power Cookies
(Makes 25)

1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1/2 cup protein powder
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg white
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips


DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Combine first seven ingredients in a medium bowl.

3. In a separate bowl whisk together honey, oil, vanilla, and eggs.

4. Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients; fold in cranberries, nuts, and chocolate chips.

5. Coat a baking pan with cooking spray and drop cookie mixture (in rounded spoonfuls) onto pan.

6. Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until lightly browned on the edges.

7. Transfer to a plate of a cool rack so they do not continue cooking. ENJOY!


Nutrition Facts
(for 1 cookie)


Ok, so the cookies received a D+ grade, but, what do you expect? It's a cookie! I think the 5.5 grams of protein is pretty impressive, and the mere 150 calories...not so bad.


And they are pretty darn delicious...


More Wheat-Free/Gluten Free Recipes


Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread

Oat Bran Pizza

Today's Dietitian posted this great article about the use of nut flours in gluten free baking. Have you ever tried almond, hazelnut, or walnut flours in our baking?? I haven't, but really want to start experimenting soon.

QUESTION: Do you have a gluten free flour combination that you love? I need some ideas for my monthly gluten free support group meetings!

11 comments :

  1. I'm not gluten free or flour free but I always find that those recipes are so much more creative. The cookies look delicious! :)

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  2. I am gluten free and these look delicious. I haven't been adventurous enough to try baking G-free yet. I'm a bit sheepish about xantham gum. I know it's a replacement, but it sounds like one of those manufactured ingredients that I should be trying to keep out of my diet, or minimize. I'm really curious to get your take on it.

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  3. That's a pretty long ingredient list for you, Gina ;) I've never used Xanthan gum...it's so expensive! I would love to try more GF baking, though...there's such a need for it!

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  4. These look delicious! I'm not allergic to gluten myself, but I have a close friend who is. I should make these for her sometime soon, they look fantastic!

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  5. I'm gluten intolerant. I'm living in Australia at the moment and they have an all purpose flour mix by white wings that is pretty good. I usually use about 1/4 cup less gluten free white wings flour than is called for and sub in 1/3-1/2 cup of almond meal. AMAZING.

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  6. I am wheat free too Gina. These look great and the 5g of protein would make one a satisfying snack. Impressed with your flour combo. I am not much of a baker but use chickpea flour a lot.

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  7. sounds like a good recipe! nut flours can be really good, too, but a lot of my patients with allergies can't have nuts either. :( Some of them are even allergic to rice and corn plus wheat, so that makes it super tricky!

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  8. Your cookies sound delicious, even if they only get a D+ grade. You're absolutely right...they're cookies! I like experimenting with a mix of grains in my gluten-free baking. For a quick sub I use 1/2 sorghum flour plus 1/2 tapioca starch/potato starch. I've been experimenting a lot more with almond flour too. So fun to experiment with different gluten-free grains!

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  9. these are great! i used to love using xanny gum in my smoothies but then it really started to hurt my stomach so i had to scale back in a major way which sucked so i never use it anymore but i have a huge bag of it and it feels like such a waste. my uncle has had celiac's for like a bagillion years (i feel like he was in the original group of people where they had no idea what was wrong with him) and my aunt used to make him brown rice flour bread all the time in her bread machine!

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  10. My husband will be so happy that he can eat a warm chocolate chip cookie again! I'll be bookmarking this recipe for sure.

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