Gluten-Free Soft-Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies.

These Soft-Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies are so soft they taste like they just came out of the oven, and they’re so good no one will know they’re Gluten-Free!

Today’s National Donut Day, but I much prefer chocolate chip cookies over donuts, so I’m popping in with an awesome cookie recipe for you today. I think these are the best gluten-free chocolate chip cookies I’ve had yet! Now, let me go ahead and say this is one of those cases where gluten-free does NOT equal healthier. There’s plenty of real sugar, butter, etc. If you’re looking for a “healthified” gluten-free chocolate chip cookie, you might want to try these.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know chocolate chip cookies are my favorite dessert.
And you also know I am super picky about my chocolate chip cookies.
I want them SOFT. Not crispy, not crunchy, and definitely not super crumbly.
I found the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, but then last year I found out I had a wheat allergy, and I’ve been looking for a replacement ever since.
Ladies and gents, this is it!

They hold up together really well, but aren’t hard at all. The edges are just sliiiight crispy, but the rest of the cookie is perfectly soft. Sticking the cookie dough balls in the freezer before baking was key in this recipe. Also, as with any cookie, you want to take them out of the oven when they still seem slightly underbaked because they continue baking while cooling on the pan.

These cookies will stay fresh for up to 2 days in an airtight container.  I mean, obviously, they were best fresh out of the oven, so you’ll definitely want to have one then. I don’t even need to tell you that though because honestly…does anyone actually bake cookies and not taste one fresh from the oven? I didn’t think so.

Gluten-Free Soft-Batch Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients:

• 1 7/8 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour (I used King Arthur’s All-Purpose GF mix)
• 1 teaspoon xantham gum (check your flour mix–if it’s already listed as an ingredient omit it)
• 6 1/3 teaspoons corn starch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, melted and cooled
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk both at room temperature, beaten
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, mixed with 1 teaspoon cornstarch

1). Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a baking pan or cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Set aside.

2). In a large bowl whisk together the GF flour, xantham gum, corn starch, salt, baking soda, and sugar. Once that’s all blended, add the light brown sugar. Make sure there are no clumps.

3). Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients by pushing them up towards the sides of the bowl. Add the following ingredients, stopping to mix well after each one: butter, shortening, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk. The dough should be thick and soft. Add the cornstarch-coated chocolate chips and mix well. (Bonus: there’s no risk of overworking the dough with gluten-free flour!)

4). Roll about 2 1/2 Tablespoons of dough into balls and place on the lined cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. DO NOT flatten the balls–leave them rounded. Place the baking sheets in the fridge for 1 hour or in the freezer for 10 minutes.

5). Remove from fridge/freezer and bake for 12 minutes. Again, the center of the cookie will appear underbaked. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes on the cookie sheet–they will continue baking as they cool. Remove from the cookie sheet and let them finish cooling on wire racks. Store in an airtight container for up to 2-3 days. Enjoy!

Servings: about 20. Approximate Nutritional information per Serving: Calories: 216 Carbs: 30g Fat: 10g Protein: 2g Fiber: 1g Sugar: 18g Points+: 6 Recipe from here.

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Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. (GF, DF)

Soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies that are gluten-free and are sweetened naturally instead of with refined sugar! All the ooey-gooey goodness of traditional chocolate chip cookies, but a little bit healthier.

Valentine’s day is Saturday! Got any plans to make a sweet treat for your loved ones?

My all-time favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies. So, you can imagine my frustration when I found out about my wheat allergy over the summer and realized I would no longer be able to enjoy my beloved chocolate chip cookie recipe. I had to find a replacement. Stat.

This recipe is an excellent alternative to my aforementioned traditional wheat-filled chocolate chip cookie recipe. The first time I made it, I was seriously skeptical. I mean, look at the ingredients! Can almond flour really work here? Can honey bind it all without even using an egg?

The answer: yes.

These cookies are super chewy, which is exactly the way I love them.
And they’re soft.
Really soft. In fact, don’t even think about attempting to eat one as soon as you take the pan out of the oven because they will appear underbaked. This worried me at first, but sure enough, after they cooled for a while they firmed up and could be held just fine. (By the way, underbaking is one of the tricks for making my original chocolate chip cookies amazing, and it works here too!)

Obviously if you’re making cookies you realize there’s going to be some serious sugar-intake happening, but I do appreciate that these cookies use honey instead of refined sugar. Honey is still a form of sugar, but if you buy good quality, raw, local honey, you are at least also getting some nutrients from the sweetener. The flavor of the honey does come through a little bit, but I love honey so that did not bother me at all. If you don’t like honey (is that possible?), then these might not be the cookies for you!

A note on the almond flour–I used Trader Joe’s almond meal/flour. I am not sure how well any other brand would work. Almond flour can vary greatly depending on what brand you purchase, so just be aware!

Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups almond flour
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (use enjoy life for dairy free)
• 1/4 cup softened butter (coconut oil for dairy free)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

1). Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with silpat liner or parchment paper.

2). In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except chocolate chips together until well-incorporated. Add in the chocolate chips.

3). Scoop about 1 tablespoon of cookie dough and place on the prepared baking sheet. Keep 2-3 inches of space between cookies. Gently press down on the cookie dough to flatten each cookie slightly.

4). Bake for 6-10 minutes, depending on your oven. The cookie should be slightly golden on the bottom and will appear underbaked, but they will finish baking as they cool.

5). Important: cool for 10-15 minutes on the cookie sheet before enjoying! You absolutely must let them cool or else they will be too soft to handle. Enjoy!

Yield: about 19 cookies. Approximate Nutritional Information per cookie: Calories: 135 Carbs: 11g Fat: 10g Fiber: 1g Protein: 2g Sugar: 9g Points+: 4. Recipe originally from here.

Karen’s Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies — The Best!

Ok, this may be a really bold statement, but…I’m about to share with you the recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite dessert. If given the option between a really great chocolate chip cookie and just about any other dessert, the cookie will win. Not all chocolate chip cookies are the same, however. My #1 requirement to win my seal of approval: they must be extremely soft. Crunchy cookies? No thank you. I really prefer for the whole entire cookie, even the edges, to be soft. And then there’s the chocolate chip ratio. I like a 50/50 split between chocolate chips and batter. Too many chocolate chips and you may as well be eating a chocolate bar, too few and you might think you’re eating a blondie. Another requirement to add to the list? No chocolate chunks, just chips please. (That goes back to my “too much chocolate” issue.) I’m saying all of this to impress upon you the fact that I am very picky with my chocolate chip cookies, and this recipe is the real deal.

So, the recipe. Karen, a dear friend of mine at work, had borrowed a tupperware container from me. Several weeks later, I found it sitting on my desk, filled with a few chocolate chip cookies. A hand-written note said “thank you!” and explained she was taught never to return tupperware empty. I made a mental note of this because it was so thoughtful. She loved to bake, so I knew they were homemade. I tried one, and immediately flew over to my laptop to email her. I HAD TO GET THIS RECIPE. They were shockingly good! Insanely soft, but still chewy! Chocolate-y, but not too much! Hands down, they were the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I ever had. I emailed her right then, frantically trying to convey to her just how much I loved these cookies, hoping she would be willing to share the recipe with me. Sure enough, a few minutes later I had a response back with the recipe to these amazing cookies. I saved the recipe to make at a later date, and now, a year later, I finally got around to it.

Karen passed away unexpectedly earlier this spring. She was a very special lady and I will always remember her, especially every time I make these cookies (which will be often now that my hunt for “the” chocolate chip cookie recipe is over!). If you love chocolate chip cookies, you need to try this recipe. At first glance, it is a bit unconventional, but I believe that’s what makes the flavor so unique. Let’s look at what’s different about it. (Nerd alert: baking science ahead!) 1) It calls for only brown sugar. Most cookie recipes call for both white sugar and brown sugar. Brown sugar has molasses in it, which adds moisture to the dough. In cookies it also adds chewy-ness. You can thank the brown sugar for helping every bite of the cookies be chewy. 2) It calls for butter-flavored shortening, not butter. Weird, right? I was so skeptical about this. I always use butter in my baked goods, and to be honest, shortening kindof grosses me out a little bit, but I decided to follow the recipe and use it anyway. Turns out, using shortening instead of butter to make cookies is great because it is already at “room temperature”, so unlike butter, you do not have to plan ahead and leave it out for hours in order to be able to cream it with sugar.  Likewise, because butter has a lower melting temperature, it makes cookies prone to spreading, resulting in really thin cookies. To avoid this, many recipes call for chilling the dough anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours before baking. Honestly? That’s too much planning for me. Using shortening solves both of those issues and helps make a perfectly soft batter. In her email, Karen gave me 2 awesome cookie-baking tricks: use an air-bake pan, and slightly under-bake the cookies. I took her advice and purchased two air-bake cookie sheets. For years, I always found my cookies to be slightly overcooked on the bottom and I thought I was doing something wrong. I couldn’t believe the difference using the air-bake pans! Problem solved. As for the 8 minute baking time, I was a little apprehensive to remove the cookies from the oven when they looked underdone, but they continued baking while I allowed them to rest on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes. By the time I moved them to the wire rack they were perfect. Under-baking the cookies helped ensure they stayed soft for days to come, so that is a key piece to making these cookies perfect!
Karen’s Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies — The Best!!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 stick Butter Flavor Shortening Baking Stick
• 1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk (I used skim)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1). Pre-heat the oven to 375F. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla with a hand-held mixer on medium speed until well-blended. Add the egg and blend again.

2). Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, using a spatula to fold the ingredients into the batter. Add the chocolate chips and mix.

3). Using a cookie-scoop, drop rounded tablespoons of the dough on air-bake pans, about 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Cookies will appear under-done. Remove from oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before moving them to a wire cooling rack. Store in an air-tight container.

Yield: about 3 dozen cookies. Nutritional Information per Serving: Calories: 130 Fat: 8g Carbs: 16g Protein: 1 g Sugar: 10g Fiber: 1g Points+: 4
Recipe adapted from: http://www.crisco.com/Recipes/Details.aspx?recipeID=2102

The BEST Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

I’ve mentioned on the blog before how much I love chocolate chip cookies. They are, quite possibly, my most favorite dessert. I am very particular about their texture and flavor. They are also an indulgence I try to stay away from most days!

Luckily, if you have a sweet tooth and love chocolate chip cookies like me, I have the perfect waist-friendly recipe for you! I was SO skeptical when I first tried this recipe. I figured these cookies would be hard as bricks or taste as dull as paper, but as it turns out, they were none of those things. Instead, they are fluffy, chewy, sweet, and chocolate-y. For low-fat and low calorie, these are amazing. The first time I made these for my husband I didn’t tell him they were “healthy” and he raved about how good they were! So, if you have friends and family that might be skeptical about a healthy cookie, test these out!

Just to let you know, half of the flour used in this recipe is whole wheat, and there are only 2 tablespoons of butter in the entire batch! The original recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, but I never have that on hand, so I use either white whole wheat or regular whole wheat. The regular whole wheat is drier and does change the texture of the cookie ever so slightly, so you may have to add a few more drops of water to smooth out the batter. If all you have is all-purpose flour, I’m sure that would work too, but you won’t get all the nutritional benefits of whole wheat.

The Best Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 egg white
• 2 tbsp apple sauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or white whole wheat flour)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1). Preheat oven to 350F.

2). In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.

3). Mix to blend. In another bowl, combine the sugars, butter, egg white, apple sauce, and vanilla until light and fluffy.

4). Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in two additions until the batter is very well blended. *If the batter looks crumbly and not shiny/smooth, add a drop of water at a time until it smooths out. Fold in chocolate chips.

5). Drop by level spoonfuls on cookie sheets (spray them if your pans require it-mine do not!). Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven. Allow to rest 5 minutes before removing cookies from pan onto wire racks.

Serving size: 2 cookies. Servings: 12. Nutritional information for TWO cookies (because you probably won’t stop at one!): Calories: 170.7 Fat: 5g Protein: 1.4 g Carbs: 34.5g Fiber: 1.4g Sugar: 24.4 g Sodium: 113.1 mg

Recipe adapted from skinnytaste.com