.jpg)
A delicious cookie recipe- minus the gluten!
When I was first diagnosed with Coeliac disease back in 2013, the gluten free food scene looked very different. Now, if you spend any time at all in a Big Tesco, you’ll see shelves upon shelves of gluten free breads, pastas, and boxes upon boxes of biscuits (they’re right by the dairy free milks, can’t miss them). In 2013 however, the gluten free food “trend” was just barely getting its legs under it, and synonymous with going “carb free”, and so needless to say, options were pretty slim. I really grew an affinity for rice cakes in that time period.
Luckily for me, I was raised in a house with no shortage of cookbooks, and by the time I was diagnosed at 15, I had already been baking up a storm for years. Starting out gluten free baking is rough though, and I cannot begin to tell you how many bakes were only edible after slathering them in jam and custard before I got the whole thing figured out.
Tips I can give now, eight years down the line, really do follow the line of, know what you’re trying to bake, know what texture it's supposed to have, and know which gluten free flours work well in creating that texture. I’d also recommend, if you’re working off a glutenous recipe, use the volumetric measurements rather than grams, as it makes for an easier transferral. The recipe I’ve outlined here is the first one where I really got a grasp on that, and it’s still one of my go to’s for something easy and delicious. If you’re really attached to that yeasty glue, just sub in the same amount of plain flour by volume, and they should work just as well.
Ingredients:
-1 ¼ cups rice flour
-¾ cups corn/maize flour
-3 mint tea bags
-½ tsp baking soda
-½ tsp salt
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-¾ cup unsalted butter , melted
-½ cup granulated sugar
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-1 egg
-1 egg yolk
-Measure the dark chocolate chips with your heart
Method:
In a large mixing bowl, combine all your dry ingredients. Tear your mint tea bags, and add the tea leaves to the dry ingredients. (The tea will steep in the cookies while they bake, making them a really earthy type of mint.)
In a separate bowl, combine your melted butter and sugars until it looks caramel-y, then add your egg and beat until well combined.
Slowly add your dry ingredients to your wet, until just combined, and then add your dark chocolate.
Spoon the mixture onto two baking sheets, and then cook at 170C for about 10 minutes in a preheated oven.
They’ll still be a bit soft when you take them out, and it's harder to judge by colour with gluten free bakes, but 10 to 12 minutes usually does. They’ll harden up as they cool. If you want to be fancy with it, top them off with some vanilla ice cream and enjoy!