Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

“Excuse me, what kind of oil do you use?”

-Mom of an allergy child..me it’s me!

Sofia, my two year old and I wanted to do something special for Evan and Antonella (Ella). Both have food allergies and a Gluten sensitivity. Evan has an allergy to tree nuts and I thought that was the worst thing ever but we managed. He is my oldest child, and wow was that hard as a first time mama. I was so scared everywhere we sat down to eat, “Excuse me, what kind of oil do you use?” was the most asked question in the last 10 years. Most places still don’t accommodate food allergies and gluten sensitivity.

Now my last child Ella had to do it even better, she is literally allergic to almost everything. Tree nuts, all dairy and a gluten allergy! We can forget going out to eat. I don’t even know what I would ask the waiter at this point. I actually have very little desire to sit at a public table with three unpredictable kids. Life happens, right?

The Gluten-free Cookies..

My husband Vincent found this cookie recipe on Godairyfree.org. Sofia and I were all for the task given to us. My tiny girl Ella barely ever gets sweets. Im not counting her baked sweet potato, haha. Best things is that this cookie is allergy friendly. I also wanted to make reality my dream of baking with Sofia. This turned out to be a treat for me. A memory we will have always. These are the ingredients and steps we followed:

Ingredients

• 1 cup + ½ cup oats, divided (for gluten-free, use certified gluten-free oats)
• ¼ cup tapioca starch
• ⅓ cup brown rice flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon
• Rounded ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup dairy free margarine
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup dairy-free chocolate chips and raisins

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF and line a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.
2. Place the ½ cup of oats in a spice / coffee grinder (a food processor or high powered blender should work too) and grind for about 30 seconds, or until you get powdery oat flour.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the fresh oat flour, the 1 cup oats, tapioca starch, brown rice flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
4. In a mixing bowl, mix together the margarine, brown sugar, maple syrup, molasses, and vanilla. Stir in the reserved flour mixture until it is all incorporated and you have a nice thick dough. Stir in the chocolate chips or raisins.
5. Drop the dough by the generous tablespoon-ful onto your prepared baking sheet. (use slightly damp hands to shape the cookies – if the dough is too moist to handle, feel free to refrigerate it for an hour or so to help it firm up.
6. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they just begin to brown. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely. Gluten-free cookies (especially ones without xanthan gum) tend to be fragile when still hot.
7. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

I hope you all will give these cookies a try, I promise they are so good. Let me know in the comments if you are going to head to your kitchen and whip up a batch. The best thing about these gluten-free cookies is that they taste better than you would expect from gluten free. As for the chocolate chip measurement, I used more haha. The result was that they were even chocolatey . If you have children with allergies, how they are doing and moving about in this not so allergy friendly world?

xx, Lee