Flourless Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know numerous people with dietary restrictions and I enjoy the challenge of baking for them; it's an interesting change of pace and often a fun search through cookbooks. Anyway, my goal was to make gluten free cookies that weren't noticeably gluten free. You see most naturally gluten free desserts (beside many frozen desserts like ice cream) are meringue based and many use nut flour in place of wheat flour. That's often delicious--for example macarons or souffles, to name just two--but it seldom comes close to having a taste and texture similar a dessert with wheat (I have to admit my nut free flourless chocolate cake is somewhat akin to a moist brownie, but other than that...)

My plan was to use flours that weren't wheat or nut based. Trying to figure out what types and proportions of flours to use is very difficult. You also have to use the right amount of starch or some other binding ingredient (such as xanthan gum or agar). I don't have the experience with gluten free cooking (or the cookbooks about it) to go experimenting with that right now--it's too costly and time consuming (I might feel differently if I couldn't eat gluten but, as I can, I don't see the need to bother). So instead I bought all purpose gluten free flour, which is basically a mixture of non-wheat flours and starches that can often be used in place of wheat flour (at least in products that don't require much gluten structure). I used the King Arthur brand since I like their wheat flour, but I'm sure other brands are good as well.

The process I used to bake these was basically the same as making any creamed butter cookie. The main difference was that I beat the heck out of the butter and sugar when I creamed them and when I added the eggs. Even when I added the dry goods, I keep beating it--since it's gluten free flour there was no need to worry about too much gluten developing and making a tough cookie. I did all this beating to trap air so much air in the batter that it would help the cookies rise even without the gluten structure holding it in. At this point I tasted the dough--the taste is delicious but the texture is slightly starchy. I was worried, but it was far too late to do anything about it, so I added the chocolate chips, scooped the cookies, baked them, and hoped for the best. Happily the starchy-ness went away after the cookies were baked. Presumably the heat activated the starches, helping the cookies to hold together and getting rid of the unpleasant texture.

These cookies were, as my mom pointed out, not 'good for being gluten and nut free,' they were just good. She was right, they were delicious cookies. They were slightly drier (not too dry, though) and crumblier than these cookies are when they are made with wheat flour, but that wasn't a bad thing. Actually I quite enjoyed them, they were quite light and airy rather than being dense and gooey--perhaps I'll whip them less next time and see if they are gooey-er.

I'm very pleased, my first time using gluten free flour was a success. I think I may try brownies next.