And I don’t know about you, but the eating habits of me and my friends (and let’s be real, my kids, as well) are so totally in flux these days, and it’s become increasingly useful to have recipes that can accommodate loved ones who need to cut out gluten. That’s why I decided to develop this gluten-free recipe for the gluten-free chocolate chip cookie lovers in your life.
The Best Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies are a lovely combination of crispy and chewy. I’ve found that gluten free flours are often lighter tasting and sometimes more delicate, but the addition of oat flour means that these have a bit of a nutty taste, too, and some substance.
The Best Gluten-Free Flour To Use
I used (and recommend) Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour Blend for this recipe. It’s a default choice for many of us at Simply Recipes and many of our gluten-free baking recipes. It produces reliable results. If you aren’t going to use this particular mix, look for another reliable gluten-free, all-purpose baking blend that contains xanthan gum in it already. The xanthan gum will help bind and stabilize the structure of the cookies.
Why Oat Flour?
The short answer? I get bored! There are so many ways to make chocolate chip cookies, and even within the realm of gluten-free ones, there are variants. I started adding oat flour to my regular cookie recipe when I was working for a bakery and people loved the nuttiness the oat flour—some people said it even tasted like peanut butter. Since oat flour is gluten free, it seemed logical to make a cookie with both gluten free flour and oat flour. Just make sure to look for oat flour and oats that are certified gluten-free. Oats are often processed in the same facilities as wheat products, so can become cross contaminated unless processed properly. Certified gluten-free products are safe to use.
Why Also Add Rolled Oats?
While you’re at it, you might as well add oats as well. They add some nice texture and bulk the cookies up a little bit.
A Pro Tip About the Chocolate Chips
You can certainly use traditional semi-sweet morsels in this recipe, but I prefer buying the bags of 60 percent bittersweet chocolate chips from Ghirardelli or something similar with a larger, flatter surface area. These chips are larger and easier to chop up into smaller pieces. Why would you bother with an extra step of chopping the chips? It makes for a more variegated cookie with chocolate bits strewn throughout.
Make-Ahead Chocolate Chip Cookies!
My ultimate weeknight cheat is to whip up a batch of cookies of any kind and bake a dozen off at a time, then cover the remaining batter and stow it in the fridge until the need arises to make more. The dough usually lasts a day or so in the fridge, maybe longer, depending on what size cookie scoop you use and how many people are gobbling down the cookies. For these, I used a medium cookie scoop, leveled—it’s about 1 1/2 tablespoons. When baking these cookies with chilled cookie dough from the fridge, just drop the temperature down to 350°F and let the cookies bake for a few minutes longer that what the recipe specifies. You can also freeze dough—just scoop them out on to a wax paper or parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze them individually. Once they’re frozen, transfer them to a resealable zip top freezer bag for up to three months.
More Gluten-Free Treats!
Vegan Brownies Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie Gluten-Free Chocolate Banana Cupcakes Gluten-Free Vanilla Birthday Cake Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Doughnuts
Line two baking sheets with parchment. You can use regular semi-sweet morsels, of course, but I like to use the Ghirardelli 60 percent bittersweet chips because they are larger and easier to chop. So you get little bits of chocolate everywhere in the cookie, as opposed to just solid pieces. Bake for about 8 minutes until they are golden around the edges. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool for about five minutes, and then transfer the cookies to the wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the process until all the dough is gone. The cookies will keep 3 to 5 days in an airtight container, but you might have to microwave them for 10 seconds to get them to soften a bit if it’s closer to 5 days.
