JOANA MIRANDA STUDIO

If you’ve been following my blog for the past few weeks you’ll know that I’ve gotten a little obsessed with perfecting the perfect gluten-free ginger chocolate chip cookie recipe.  And since today was 87 degrees out, I of course felt right at home firing up the oven and “warming” up our apartment some more. (But believe me, these cookies ARE worth it!)

Where today’s cookies differ from my past two attempts is in the texture and stability of the cookie (i.e.  they hold together when you pick them up, yet are not dry or “sandy” feeling on the tongue.)  The biggest difference of course is the almond flour I used.  I’m now a convert to the almond flour at Nuts.com.  The texture of their flour is extremely fine – almost powdery – and the result is cookies (and other baked goods) that appear very similar to the results you’d get if you used regular flour.  Yay for Nuts.com!   (Oh, and by the way, they also threw in a little bonus package of Chia seeds with my order…that’s what I call excellent customer service!)  I’ll be back to order more almond flour and other healthy products from them soon.

The almond flour instructions from Nuts.com say to replace the volume of flour in your recipe with the same volume of almond flour.  For the base of my recipe, therefore, I turned to an old standby from my kitchen library – The Great Big Cookie Book.

Their Tollhouse Cookie recipe (with my additions/changes) follows:

Ingredients

(Makes about 24 cookies)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (I use Kerrygold Irish butter from grass-fed cows)

scant 1/4 cup of coconut sugar

10 packets of Splenda sugar substitute

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 well-packed cup almond flour

1/8 cup coconut flour

scant 1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and the two sugars until the mixture is well combined and fluffy.
3. In another bowl, mix the egg and vanilla extract, then gradually beat into the butter mixture. (The mixture will appear fairly liquid at this point.)  Stir in the almond and coconut flours, baking soda and salt until blended.
4. Add the chocolate chips and chopped ginger, and mix to combine thoroughly.

5. Place heaping teaspoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

6. Bake for 7-10 minutes, until lightly colored.  Let cool for 15 minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to a wire rack to further cool.

7. Drool, then enjoy.

A few notes…

• I used to hate ginger (crystallized, or in any other form) as a child.  Now I love it.  If you’re not into ginger, leave it out.  (Another nice option would be to substitute chopped candied orange peel…and Nuts.com just happens to carry it!)
• When working with almond flour in baked goods, increase the baking soda or baking powder by a 1/3 of a teaspoon. (My recipe has already accounted for this increase.)
• 12 packets of Splenda = 1/2 cup regular sugar.  I used 10 packets because I wanted to try to cut down on the sugar.  I also used coconut sugar (supposedly less glycemic than regular sugar) instead of the brown sugar in the original recipe.
• I added coconut flour since a small amount of this gluten-free flour tends to help firm up an otherwise wet cookie dough.  Using it also helps to stretch my almond flour stash…
• I store these cookies in a sealed plastic container in the freezer.  That way they will keep longer while still having that just-out-of-the-oven fresh taste.  (Cookies “thaw” very quickly…heck, they’re even good frozen, too!)