Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think Southern Living is now my favorite magazine. Why? Because the August 2010 issue contained a recipe for egg-free cookies, which I adapted to make the best chocolate chip cookies that I have managed to make with gluten-free flour and without butter. My previous attempts at gluten-free dairy-free chocolate chip cookies all turned into one large crunchy blob on the cookie sheet. Even when I refrigerated the dough to make sure that it was cold before baking, it still oozed into a dough monster once I put the round balls of dough in the oven.

I got so frustrated that I gave up trying to make chocolate chip cookies. Until I saw this recipe. Why did this recipe inspire me to try again? Because it contained an ingredient that I had never seen before in a cookie recipe: alcohol. I don't know much about food chemical reactions, but something in the alcohol caused the balls of dough to turn into perfectly shaped cookies. On top of that, the cookies were nice and chewy and didn't fall apart when we bit into them. What more could you ask for in a chocolate chip cookie?

My one caveat is that using the amount of alcohol called for in the original recipe gave the cookies a slightly odd, alcoholic flavor, so I modified the recipe to use half the original amount of alcohol. Even with half of the alcohol called for, the cookies still held together wonderfully, and they tasted great, too. The original recipe called for coffee liqueur, but I used rum because liqueurs can contain corn products.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. hot water
• 1/2 Tbsp. ground flax seed meal. I use Bob's Red Mill brand of flax seed meal.
  
• 1/2 cup Spectrum Organic shortening
• 3 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 3 Tbsp. light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. Bacardi Original Puerto Rican rum
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn. Recently I have been using Rodelle Vanilla Flavor alcohol free all natural extract, which I found at Stop and Shop.
• 1 1/3 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips. I recommend Ghirardelli, Trader Joe's, or Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips.
  

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Heat 2 Tbsp. of water in a cup and then add the ground flax seed meal and stir.

In the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer (or a large bowl if you are using a hand-held mixer) add the shortening. Turn the mixer on low speed and add the white sugar and brown sugar gradually, one tablespoon at a time, while keeping the mixer on low speed. Then pour the rum and vanilla extract into the mixing bowl and continue to mix on low speed until blended.

In a separate small bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Then take the cup of water and flax seed meal and pour it into the bowl with the creamed sugar and liquids. Mix on low speed until combined. Add the flour mixture to the rest of the ingredients and mix on low until well blended. Then fold in the chocolate chips using a spatula.

Place tablespoonfuls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet, leaving a couple of inches between each ball of dough. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until they are golden. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 3 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to finish cooling.