This was an attempt at Gluten-Free baking. You see, my husband is allergic to gluten and, well, I bake. So hence the Gluten-Free baking. This was also an attempt to distract myself from the fact that I’ve been sick for four weeks and currently have a 99.5 temp. Don’t ask me how baking does that. Let’s just say I’d rather be baking and saying “Boo hoo, poor me.” than sitting on the couch saying it.
Back to the recipe.
You will need:
1 heaping cup oats (or 1 cup GF oat flour)
1 and 1/4 cups blanched whole almonds (or 1 cup almond flour)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs plus one white, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup Nutella
1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
Salt (roughly 1/2 tsp)
sugar for rolling (optional)
(Wait. I forgot to ask you if you even want to make this recipe?? Do you??)
Okay so here’s the thing. You’ll notice one thing is missing from this recipe- sugar. Now, before you get all up in arms defending your right to eat sugar let me say this was a scientifically thought out choice. Lemme ‘splain. Sugar, despite its solid-looking form is actually ...don don DOOONNNN!!! A shortener. *ghasp!* yes, it’s presence in traditional baked goods serves to shorten the gluten strands. So, I thought “Gluten-Free...sugar shortens the non-existent gluten...maybe that’s why all my GF goodies have looked kinda funny.” So I had a BRILLIANT IDEA (about 15 minutes too late for me, but soon enough for you) you can just put the sugar on the OUTSIDE!!! It’s genius!!
Pre-heat joo oven to 325. Cool. Line 1-3 pans with parchment, depending on how much mess you want to clean up. Or how much time you want to save. The fate of the world is hanging in the balance as you make this choice.
Aaaanyway. So first things. You’ve gotta pulverize your oats and almonds, that is if you’re not fancy enough to own oat and almond flours... fancy people... I used our Vitamix but I bet your food processor or blender would work great. First pulverize the oats, pour them into the bowl you’re going to mix in (NO KitchenAid mixers people, air practically kills these cookies) and then do the almonds. Be careful not to over do it with the almonds, you don’t wanna be making the start of no marzipan. Come to think of it, I wonder if you could do both the oats and almonds at the same time? Someone try it and tell me how it turns out. When that’s all good and ground up chuck that in the bowl, too.
Next you mix the cocoa powder into the flours. Oo! It looks so pretty. Add your eggs making sure the mixture gets evenly moist. Now the wanilla...smell so yummy... Okay. So, at this point I will confess- I have been winging this entire thing. Yup. Okay. I wasn’t really sure how much fat/moistener this was going to need so I started by adding 1/2 cup Nutella (you can’t really go wrong, can you??) and then realized it needed more moisture. I stood wide-eyed in the middle of the kitchen floor for an entire minute, half of my body pulling toward the fridge and half toward the pantry. Traditional baking would have me add milk (okay, I would add cream) but my new-found Gluten-Free baking skills were flashing red and screaming “WARNING! WARNING! DANGER OF RECIPE FAILURE, DANGER OF RECIPE FAILURE!” A little out of breath, I added a third of a cup of peanut butter. Whew, saved.
Oh yes, also put some salt. And then put your back into it!! Get all of that glue-y, Nutella-y, peanut butter-y goodness mixed up. Mmm, mmm. If it’s still dry add a smidgen more Nutella. ;)
Okay! So now pick up dough sized ball (tablespoon? two tablespoons? 1 oz? idk?) and roll it into a ball and then, a la your mother’s molasses cookies, roll it in sugar!! Whoohoo!! If you’re going for more of a breakfast cookie leave the sugar off. I will not judge. Put 12 balls to a sheet (makes roughly 2.5 doz) and flatten them a with your fingers or a fork until they’re about 1/3 inch thick
Now for the baking. Put them in the oven for about 6-8 minutes. They will look a little wet in the middle but this is good. Pull out, LET FULLY COOL. I don’t know if I said that loud enough...LET THE STINKING COOKIES COOL ALL THE WAY!! YOU’RE JUST GOING TO BURN YOUR FACE AND HAVE CRUMBLIES ALL OVER YOU!! Was that loud enough? I dunno... ENJOY!!!
Also, Note: If you’re going to get creative and put fancy sugar on your cookies, okay chocolate, if you’re going to put chocolate on your cookies when they come out of the oven so it gets all melty and drools down the sides make sure you’re using not “Vanilla Chips” they don’t melt. In fact, upon further inspection of the label, “Vanilla Chips” are pretty much on par with margarine in my book. And you don’t want me to get started about margarine... My bag of “Vanilla Chips” now resides in the garbage can.
