The Best Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know.

Me too.

Whenever I see the title ‘The Best . . . ‘ it makes me skeptical.

It’s such a bold claim to make.

I’ve attempted to make my fair share of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

A decent one is hard to come by.

And by decent I mean ones that pretty much replicate a normal cookie in the soft and chewy stakes. Not one that looks like cardboard, tastes like cardboard and disintegrates into shrapnel as soon as you bite into it.

These don’t do that. They don’t even look as if they would do that, do they? Crunchy on the edges, soft and chewy in the centre. Perfect.

And as a happy coincidence they are also dairy-free (if you use vegan chocolate chips. If not, normal dark chocolate chips are fine).

You may look at the number of different flours in this recipe and the small quantities and balk a little. If you want to replace all of the flours with a ready blended gluten-free mix, then that’s fine, but I can’t guarantee that the results will be the same. I know that having to use an assortment of flours may be a pain, but I really think it is worth it.

So back to the cookies. You know you want to . . . They really are THE BEST.

Especially when you can reward yourself for spending some time in a hot kitchen, with a hot oven on, by doing this with them:

Ice cream cookie sandwiches. Yum!

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes approx. 14 cookies

Ingredients:

• 75ml Carotina oil or rapeseed oil
• 3 tbsps unsweetened applesauce (either bought or homemade)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 125g raw cane sugar
• 75g cornflour
• 15g gram (chickpea/garbanzo bean) flour
• 15g buckwheat flour
• 15g brown rice flour
• 8g soya flour
• 23g coconut flour
• 15g flax meal
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 75g dark chocolate chips (vegan or otherwise)

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees celsius and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Combine the oil, applesauce, salt, vanilla extract and sugar in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together all the flours, flax meal and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Carefully add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until it forms a dough.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Drop heaped teaspoons of the dough onto the trays (or use a small ice cream scoop). Make sure to place them well apart as they will spread during baking.
7. Bake for 15 minutes then allow to cool on the trays for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Will keep for a few days in an airtight container.