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!

Sugar Coma

On Saturday my best friend got married to her boyfriend of almost ten years, Rob. CONGRATS TO BOTH OF YOU!!!! Their wedding was not only beautiful, but it was a blast. Everything was perfect and Cathy looked amazing, as always. Many of you know that my favorite part of any wedding is the cake.

This one was very simple, with all white frosting and the only decorations were the little flowers on the side. I thought it looked perfect. But how about the taste? Out of this world.

I believe they kept the cake simple because they knew the most popular dessert (for most people...) would be the freshly baked pies.



I could have eaten this entire pie by myself. It was the best pecan pie I have ever tasted. The best part about it was the thin layer of chocolate on the bottom. I was in heaven eating this.


Throughout the entire night (on top of several glasses of white wine) I ate: 1 piece of wedding cake, almost two entire pieces of pie (pecan and apple) and a Snicker bar. Gross Gina. Talk about a serious binge! Am I mad at myself? Heck no. I don't ever do that, so who cares?! Not me. It all tasted wonderful. Don't ask about the Snicker bar....Nick and I got a hotel that night and rated the vending machines, as if we had been deprived of sugar or something...


Keeping on the theme of "desserts", today I wanted to share with you a new cookie recipe. Evan posted this "Chunky Monkey Nut Butter Oatie recipe several weeks ago, which I just had to try myself. I was glad I did because before making these cookies I had no idea just how easy it was to make oat flour. Seriously, check this out!

All I did was add the oats to my Magic Bullet and turn it on for about 30 seconds. It's just like regular flour you would buy at the store! I think I could make pizza with this stuff....what do you think?!

I started this recipe with intentions to follow Evan's recipe ~99% (I knew I wasn't going to use honey, because it's not something I can eat on my low FODMAP diet). As is typical with me, I ended up modifying the recipe to a much greater extent than I had planned (and not on purpose....). Here is my completely modified recipe for Evan's "Chunky Monkey Nut Butter Oaties;

Ingredients

1/2 cup oatmeal

6 T peanut butter (I used Soy butter and Smucker's all natural peanut butter)

1/2 cup sliced almonds

2 T Splenda brown sugar (or 4 T regular brown sugar)

2 T molasses

2T water

1/2 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

~1/4 t baking soda



Directions

1. With a food processor or Magic Bullet, create a flour out of your oats (see my picture above).

2. Add the peanut butter, brown sugar, molasses, and water to the oat flour, then mix it all up.

3. Blend in the salt, cinnamon, and baking soda.

4. Add the almonds.

5. Place cookies on a greased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet with a piece of foil or wax paper on top.

6. Bake at 325 for ~20 minutes (times may vary!)

Yes, these were delicious, with 170 calories of pure healthy goodness (ok, aside from the molasses and brown sugar....). Thanks for the inspiration, Evan!


Question: What's your favorite type of cookie? Have you tried soy butter yet? If not, check out my post to read all about it.