Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Finally! Wow these past four weeks have been a whirlwind of disappointments. As you well know my stove went on the blink and kept throwing the electric breaker. After a few hundred dollars to have the breaker switched out only a few hours later the new breaker blew again.

Being the spend thrift that I try to be, we opted to have the electric line to the stove removed and a gas line put in. Since we have a gas furnace this wasn’t a hard process, but once again it cost $$$$$$$  Once completed, we were off to the nearest big chain hardware store to pick out a new gas range. We found one we really liked, made the purchase, only then to find it was a full three weeks for the delivery.

Biting my tongue, I accepted the time frame and pouted the whole way home. Delivery day finally arrived and we had everything in place, our cat Carmella placed in a room where she wouldn't bother the delivery people, and was all set!

As I stood on our porch watching the delivery person unloading and unwrapping the box in which it came, I had visions of brownies, coffee cakes, cookies all tossing about in my head. I felt like a child on Christmas morning.

My husband and the second delivery person were inside hooking up the gas hose connection to the main line and I was so excited I could barely contain my excitement...then it happened...as the box fell away, I noticed the whole back frame of the stove was damaged. My heart sank!

My husband called the company to tell them the damaged stove needed replaced only to find out we wouldn't be getting a replacement shipped for another three weeks. Enough is enough...Well after sleeping on it for a night I decided to go looking for a stove at some different appliance stores locally and found an even better stove, and it was actually delivered the next day. Hence, I am sharing my delicious chocolate cookie recipe and my mock gluten free flour mix it was made with.

It was a glorious feeling to be able to cook and bake on a stove after four full weeks of being without. So, I hope you give this recipe a try and enjoy it as much as my husband and I did after our never-ending journey of being without a stove. Drop me a line and tell me know how you liked the recipe. 

Till then,

Sharon

 

"MOCK" Jules all- purpose flour blend (all ingredients can be purchased from Amazon to the right of this post)

116 grams MODIFIED tapioca starch (not the same as regular tapioca starch)

192 grams potato STARCH

64 grams cornstarch

160 grams Very Fine white rice flour

62 grams corn FLOUR

4 teas xanthan gum

1 cup weighs 135 grams

 

GF Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

1 teas baking soda

1/2 teas salt

96 grams brown sugar (1/2 cup)

100 grams white granulated sugar (1/2 cup)

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1 cup mini vanilla chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 teas vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room tempt

210 grams MOCK Jules flour (recipe above)

 

Set oven to 350 degrees Combine the gluten free flour mix, baking soda and salt all in a small bowl and set aside.

Next cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together on low speed of an electric mixer. Mixing on low, add the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla to the mix until all is smooth. Mix on low and slowly add the flour mixture until a soft dough forms. Then add the chips and chopped walnuts until just combined. Chill dough for about 30 minutes, placing bowl back in refrigerator between filling the cookie sheets to keep chilled. Chilling helps to keep the cookies from spreading too much when baking.

I used a cookie scoop to make about golf size balls of dough placing them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, about 6 per sheet depending on the size of your cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for about 10 to 14 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. I like a darker cookie so I baked mine for 14 minutes. However, your oven, and size of cookie dough balls might differ from mine, so check at 10 minutes and every minute after till you reach your desired darkness. Then bake your next batches with that set time.

Once they are done baking let them set on the trays on a rack for a few minutes to firm up before transferring them to a cookie rack to finish cooling, otherwise they might crack or fall apart.  They are softer in the center with a slightly crisper edge, which make them great dunking cookies.

I hope you enjoy the recipe. I will be posting again soon, so until then, ENJOY your Wheat Free Living!

 

  

Gluten free gums...

 

Today we will be discussing gluten free gums in baking. Gluten is the one main thing lacking in all gluten free flours. Yes, I know, real bummer, right? Life just isn't easy sometimes. Most all gluten free storebought mixes already contain gums in their ingredients list, mostly, if not all list xanthan gum in the ingredient list, so you are pretty much limited on your choice of the two. Xanthan gum or guar gum.

These premade mixes usually work best in baked goods such as cookies and muffins, however they limit you in choosing to use one gum over the other because they are already in the pre made mixes. Therefore, if you make your own GF home blended mixes you can save yourself a few $$$ and choose which gum you would prefer to use. The two basic gums I'm going to discuss today are xanthan gum and guar gum.

 I prefer to blend my own homemade mixes "WITHOUT" any added gums, then I can add the amount I need according to whatever recipe I am making, Ex: Cookies, cakes, etc. You will find Xanthan gum in many products that you consume already on a daily basis. It’s in most salad dressings, ice cream, and even yogurts. It’s also used in many cosmetic products like lotions and shampoos.  

First you might want to consider the cost of both. Guar gum costs nearly half as much as xanthan gum.  Guar gum is made by grinding a bean like seed from the guar plant into a fine fibrous powder. Some people find that guar gum can cause digestive problems even when used in small amounts and be unable to digest baked goods that use guar gum, therefore xanthan gum might be a better choice. If too much guar gum is used it can cause dense, stringy texture to your baked goods.

Xanthan gum is probably the most commonly used gluten substitute of the two in gluten free baking. It is made by fermenting sugars (glucose, sucrose, or lactose) with a microbial called Xanthomonas campestris. Sometimes corn sugar. It should be used sparingly. Too much can cause results that can be dense, gummy and sometimes slimy.

Since I mix my own gluten free flour blends, I prefer to add the gums to my recipe as needed instead of mixing it into the blends, that way I can be more precise in using the right amount for the particular recipe I might be making.

When using Xanthan Gum follow this chart:

To make:

Cookies: 1/4 teas per each cup of gluten free flour

Cakes & Pancakes:  1/2 teas per each cup of gluten free flour

Muffins & Quick breads:  3/4 teas per each cup of gluten free flour

Breads: 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per each cup of gluten free flour

Pizza dough: 2 teas per each cup of gluten free flour

EX:  If your recipe calls for 2 cups of flour for a cookie recipe you would add just ½ teas of xanthan gum to the flour in the recipe.

 

To use Guar gum: 

Cookies; 1/4 to ½ teas per cup of gluten free flour

Cakes and pancakes:  ¾ teas per cup of gluten free flour

Muffins & quick breads:  1 teas per cup of gluten free flour

Breads: 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons per cup of gluten free flour

Pizza dough: 1 Table per cup of gluten free flour

EX:  If your recipe calls for 2 cups of flour for a cookie recipe you would add just ½ to 1 teas guar gum to the flour in the recipe.

 

 

I personally have been using xanthan gum for years just because that is what I have always had on hand so I personally cannot tell you how guar gum will work on any of the recipes I post. It’s a personal preference.

There are other alternatives such as flaxseed and ground chia seed. They will not give you the same mouth feel in your baked goods so therefore I do not personally use them, unless specifically called for in bread recipes. They will however reduce the crumbliness that your baked goods would have without adding anything. Also, because these need to be added to water before using, most recipe might require a tweaking of the liquids in the recipe. Kind of like adding 5 eggs to a recipe when it only calls for 3. 

I have surfed the web over the years and found countless "MOCK" flour mixes. Some I have used; some I haven’t gotten to yet, but I will be sharing a few with you soon. I’m still waiting on my stove to be delivered. September 1st can't come soon enough!!! I am having a surprise birthday party for my grandson who will be turning 18 this year on the 13th of September and I need to get baking. 

I hope this helps answer most of your questions about gums to add structure to your baked goods. I look forward to finally being able to try four of the "MOCK" gluten free flour mixes I have mixed and sitting on my shelf ready to make brownies and compare the results of each with you very soon.

Until next post,

Sharon