A Crazy Night

I did something crazy last night.  Perhaps not crazy on a clinical level, but pretty out of character anyway.  I followed a recipe almost exactly.  It's a recipe I've made many times, but just always tweaked a little bit or a lot, depending on my ingredient warehouse and my mood.  The first few times, I didn't have the exact rice flour called for.  The next few times, I subbed in some cocoa powder and STILL didn't have that dang rice flour.  I had regular rice flour, just not glutinous rice flour.  I had rice flour and various other finely grained flours in enough abundance that I felt no need to add glutinous rice flour to the mix.  Plus, it didn't fit in the cabinet.  Plus, sometimes the food budget doesn't allow for someone to recklessly buy 4 different kinds of flours every week.  And that's a good thing.  Because someone has to pick and choose which flours they buy when, and be pretty darn methodical about it, getting the timing right so that someone doesn't run out of tapioca and arrowroot at the same time because that could be disastrous.  It's a balancing act in art, really.

Back to last night.  I made chocolate chip cookies.  Gluten free, of course.  From the Blackbird Bakery Gluten Free cookbook (blackbird-bakery.com), one of my favorites.  The author, Karen Morgan, is meticulously precise and likes her food delicious whether savory or sweet.  Gluten free is not a limitation.  It's an invitation to experiment, to expand your horizons, and to make food that won't hurt your tummy.  It's just another way of eating, and one worth trying out if you haven't already.

Why is it worth trying out if you haven't already?  Well, no matter your current and long-held eating beliefs and ingrained habits, it's always interesting to mix it up and try something different to see how your body reacts.  You don't want to try just anything, of course - nothing known to be harmful or to create negative side effects, but perhaps something less accepted, something unusual, something that all the cool kids aren't doing.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I do not have celiac disease.  I did not have a known strong intolerance to gluten.  Nor did I overeat carbohydrates.  I had a pretty well-balanced diet.  However, I've been limiting gluten intake for probably about 8 months now, and there is a noticeable decrease in water retention.  Yay for less bloating!  Yay for not feeling overly full EVER.  But that's just me.  The change took awhile to kick in - just like with any type of lifestyle change, they tend to take awhile to truly become part of your lifestyle, and only then, only when you proceed accordingly without focusing on the change, do you free yourself to experience the internal and external changes that are wrought by a change in diet that agrees with your body.

In any case, who doesn't need chocolate chip cookies in their life?  And their pantry?

Here is the recipe I followed.  Feel free to tweak:  substitute up to 1/4 flour with cocoa powder and/or any nut flour.  If you don't have glutinous rice flour, just use regular.  If you like milk chocolate chips, by all means, substitute away, and add up to 1 additional cup of chips.  That is one piece of the recipe I did not follow.  She calls for 3 cups total of chips, and I use about 2 or a bit less than that.

1 1/4 c. glutinous rice flour
1 1/4 c. sorghum flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp guar gum
1 1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. plus 1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
3 large eggs
4 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips of your choice (or more to taste)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly (use a hand mixer, food processor, or stand mixer).  Add the butter and mix on low speed (or pulse, if using a food processor) until blended.  Add all the eggs at once and the vanilla and mix until light and fluffy.  Fold in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed.

Cover and refridgerate for at least 2 hours or up to 5 days (she says 2 days, but I've kept it for a week, just baking 6 cookies at a time every day).   If you use just a bit of dough at a time, be sure and keep the rest wrapped up nice and airtight and cool.  You can freeze it as well, for up to a couple weeks, I'd estimate.  If you're lucky, like I am, maybe you live with someone who likes to be a batter tester for these times when you use just a bit at a time.  He is willing to sacrifice himself for the cause of testing the batter at least once a day to make sure it's safe for your consumption.  I live with just such a selfless person.

Position a rack in the center of your oven and preheat to 325.  Line 1 or 2 baking sheets with parchment (this works MUCH better than greasing a pan for these cookies).  Using an ice cream scoop or other spooning implement, place equal sized mounds of dough at least 1 inch apart on your baking sheets.  As long as all your cookies are about the same size as one another, make them however big or small you like, just adjust the cooking time accordingly.  If you're using a 1 1/2" ice cream scoop, your cookies will take about 13-14 minutes until they are done and soft.  The middles should spring back when pressed gently.  Bigger cookies = longer cooking time; smaller cookies = shorter cooking time.  Remove from the oven when done and let cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely.

Important Note!! These cookies firm up more as they cool, so if the bottoms are golden brown, they mostly spring back when pressed, and you like soft cookies, take them out.

Enjoy!