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Gluten Free Foodie Friday | Softbake Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My pregnancy cravings are a funny thing. One week I’m all “pregnant cliché” and desperate for good Montreal pickles, the next week it’s grapefruit, then the next it’s tree-ripened Niagara peaches. For the most part, my cravings have been healthy and totally random, apart from one faithful friend: chocolate. All. Things. Chocolate.

To chalk this up to simply a pregnancy craving might not be fair. I have had a fairly serious love affair with the creamy richness of good quality chocolate since my childhood. My favourite part of Christmas morning was always the really special chocolate truffle my Mum would hide in the toe of my stocking. I loved the crinkle of the paper-thin foil wrapper as I delicately unwrapped it, and the ecstasy of that first bite, sinking my teeth into that creamy goodness {all before breakfast, of course!}. That one treat was heaven on Christmas morning!

Well, as many of you know, I developed an allergy to cane sugar in adulthood that made my love of chocolate feel suddenly clandestine and forbidden. Sugar makes my tongue and throat swell up, so I don’t mess with it which makes finding options very challenging. Until a few years ago when in a moment of total bliss, I stumbled upon a company making organic milk chocolate bars sweetened with beet sugar. Naturally, I took it as a sign that God really loves me. A lot.

{Image Source}

This post is bittersweet {no pun intended}, because said chocolate company has recently decided to change their formulation and they are now using organic cane sugar {just like practically every other chocolate manufacturer on the planet}. I wept big, crocodile-sized pregnant tears after calling their customer service department and confirming it wasn’t a mistake. OK, not really, but I did weep on the inside. A lot.

I have found an amazing company in Australia that is making what looks like GORGEOUS chocolate sweetened with coconut sugar and/or coconut syrup – amazing because that also makes it low glycemic! They have a milk chocolate bar that looks decadent {milk chocolate is really hard to find when not sweetened with cane sugar} AND a caramel chocolate bar {see image below} that looks like it may have descended directly from heaven…but…they don’t ship to Canada. Yet. So, if any of you know anyone living in Australia who would like to hook up a pregnant girl with a life-changing chocolate supply, please put them in touch with me! They can add to their resumé “dealer of happiness + pregnant joy.” Seriously.

{Caramel chocolate bar from Loving Earth}

OK, so that lengthy preamble is really just my way of explaining why today’s recipe is so happy-sad for me. Happy because these are truly the most amazing gluten-free chocolate chunk cookies I’ve ever made or tasted in my life. Full stop. Sad because my supply of chocolate is nearly gone {I cleared out my local Whole Foods when I learned of the recipe change but only have enough left in the pantry to make another two batches}. Maybe this is God’s way of loving me in a new way…and keeping me from gaining too much weight during pregnancy? Probably. I’m going to take it that way.

For those of you who don’t have my unusual cane sugar allergy, this should really just be a happy post as you can use your favourite chocolate and be done with it! These will obviously work well with regular flour as well, but I would be amiss if I didn’t mention once again my gratitude for the amazing Cup4Cup flour. It has truly changed my baking, sweet-toothed life, and my non-gluten-free guys say these are the best chocolate chunk cookies they’ve ever had, gluten free or not. So that’s fairly high praise.

And now, on to the recipe!

GLUTEN FREE SOFTBAKE CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

THE INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup unsalted butter {softened to room temperature}

1/4 cup full fat organic cream cheese

1 cup organic coconut sugar

Egg replacer equivalent to one egg

2 tsp good quality vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups Cup4Cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

A pinch of Maldon or other good sea salt

3 3oz bars of milk chocolate, cut into chunks

THE METHOD:

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, cream cheese, coconut sugar, vanilla and egg substitute until light and fluffly {3-5 mins}. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. In a small bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and then – with the mixer on a low speed – add the dry ingredients to the wet 1/2 a cup at a time just until everything is combined. Add chocolate chunks and mix on a low speed until there is an even distribution of chocolate throughout the dough.

Transfer the dough to two separate sheets of parchment paper and create logs or rolls like this:

Referigerate for a minimum of 2 hours and as much as a week {I usually bake one half of the batch the day I make it and then bake the other half later in the week}.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Slice the chilled dough into half inch chunks and arrange 2-3 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes or until the edges are ever-so-slightly golden but the cookies are perhaps still looking a bit undercooked. Allow them to cool on the cookie sheet {they will hold together once they’ve cooled, so fear not!} and then store them in an airtight container to keep them soft and glorious. If, that is, they make it into the container at all. The hardest part of this recipe is letting them cool before everyone devours them!

I find each half batch gives me about 10 cookies. Let’s just say they don’t last long. Like I said before, it’s probably a good thing my chocolate supplies are on ration for now! With 14 weeks of pregnancy to go, I’d prefer not to balloon up thanks to a recently developed, decadent cookie recipe! All things in moderation, right?

Wishing you a lovely weekend filled with laughter and good conversation shared over good food with the ones you love.

xo
s.

Redeeming a Sweet Tradition | Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

As many of you know, I’ve chosen to go gluten-free as a part of a more anti-inflammatory way of life. What I haven’t share with you before now is why. I’m doing this because I’m recovery from a couple of serious car accidents and I want to give my body all the tools it needs to heal. What I’m learning along the way is that everyone’s journey to going gluten-free is different. I have friends with Celiac disease who are gluten-free because they have to avoid all gluten in order to stay alive. I have friends who are gluten-free for the sake of their figure and find it an amazing tool for staying slim. And I have friends like me whose bodies “tolerate” gluten but aren’t the happiest when they eat it. For all of us, we get to learn together.

I feel like saying that I haven’t made this choice to jump in on a trend. I’ve chosen to go gluten-free {on the recommendation of my very lovely naturopath} for the sake of greater health, and I’ve decided that this will NOT be a process of denial and punishment. Rather than thinking of it as a list of “no no’s,” I have chosen to think of it as an adventure in recreating recipes and finding new foodie loves.

Holiday baking being a classic tradition, I decided to reinvent a simple, classic Sugar Cookie recipe to create a holiday treat that is “safe” for me and all of my gluten-free friends. And what better way to make those sweet treats than with friends!

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HANSEN

The star player in our gluten-free baking adventures so far has definitely been Cup4Cup flour. The dough this product creates {from pie crust dough to cookie dough} is insanely beautiful to work with. In fact, I prefer it over regular flour! Seriously. The result with these sugar cookies not only tastes great, but the edges are so clean that my baking queen of a friend Natalie asked if I’d cut them twice {once before and once after baking}! I seriously think you’ll love working with it.

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HANSEN

My other secret weapon? Coconut sugar. OK, so I guess this makes these sugar-free Sugar Cookies! A rather lovely twist in the plot if you ask me! So why do I use coconut sugar instead of regular cane sugar? A) It is anti-inflammatory and super low on the glycemic index, and B) I actually have an anaphylactic allergy to cane sugar, so it’s kind of a non-negotiable for me. {Please celebrate this one with me as it is actually the BEST anti-aging allergy I could possibly have. I seriously feel blessed with this one.} Coconut sugar has quickly become my favourite cane-sugar-substitute, and the great news is that you can now get coconut sugar in bulk at Costco!! It makes me so happy to see healthy living becoming increasingly accessible for everyone.

The amazing thing about the way the coconut sugar performs in this recipe is that it seems to caramelize as it bakes, giving the cookies a maple shortbread kind of flavour without a drop of maple syrup or maple sugar involved. SUPER yummy! And the cookies are actually soft. That’s right. Gluten-free cookies that are not as dry as the Sahara. Even my non-gluten-free family and friends love these little lovelies! Now that is a triumph. Here’s how we made them:

THE RECIPE

1 1/2 c softened organic butter

2 c coconut sugar

4 eggs or egg substitute equivalent {I used egg substitute as this is another allergy for me}

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 c. Cup4Cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

THE METHOD

In a stand mixer, cream together the butter, coconut sugar, egg substitute and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and then slowly add them to the wet ingredients until fully combined. Wrap the dough and chill for an hour {or overnight}. You can even freeze it in balls to bake one batch at a time if you’d like!

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface until it’s about 1/4″ thick. Use your favourite cookie cutters to cut out shapes and place the cut cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 6-8 minutes and cool completely before icing.

PHOTO BY GABRIELA HANSEN

Oh yes, I nearly forgot! What does a sugar-free girl do about icing, you might ask? Well, my friend Jenn was the problem solver on this one. She gave me the idea to create a cream-cheese-based icing and pipe that on instead of Royal Icing. That’s just what I did and it worked like a charm! I just mixed one tub of spreadable light cream cheese with about 20 drops of Stevia and 2 TBSP of honey {I didn’t use coconut sugar here because I wanted the icing to stay white}. As you can see, no one would ever know it wasn’t Royal Icing just to look at the finished product. Yes, the icing has a cream-cheesy flavour, but I actually like that a lot. For my next batch I might experiment with a bit of lemon juice or lemon zest added to the icing for a refreshing twist, though I think I’ll have to go with a full-fat cream cheese to keep it from getting too runny if I do that.

See? There are most definitely creative ways to reinvent the old classics! No need for total self-denial or missing out on holiday traditions! What are your favourite holiday treats? Any gluten-free baking tips from all you veterans out there? I’d love to continue learning together!

Wishing you all a wonderful {gluten-free} Wednesday.

xo
s.