Gluten-Free Chocolate Bar Cookies (an experiment)

Yesterday I mentioned that I was trying something different. I love Elana Amsterdam's recipe for gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, only I make it with coconut oil instead of grapeseed oil and maple syrup (the good stuff!) in lieu of agave because I hate agave. But everything else is the same, unless I sub out a handful of the almond flour for coconut flour. This makes more of a dense, soft cookie that doesn't spread when baked.

I'm the kind of person who usually wants something sweet after dinner, and chocolate should be involved somehow. When I don't have a healthier alternative, I eat junk. I decided to stop buying junk earlier this year, so I make this recipe all the time.

While eating these cookies, I get ideas. Such as, what would they be like as a crust? Could I make them bigger and really thin, then shape/roll them like brandy snaps? How would they do sandwiched together with chocolate ganache or some other kind of filling? And so on.

Instead of just making more chocolate chip cookies, yesterday I decided to see if I could bake the dough as one big rectangle and make bar cookies out of it. I left out the chocolate chips because I knew I wanted the topping to be chocolate. It worked out okay. I spread the dough as evenly as possible over the bottom of my 11" x 15" jelly roll pan that I lined with parchment paper. This was not easy or pleasant because the dough is super sticky, and it didn't get spread all that evenly, either. Then I baked it for quite a bit longer than the 7-10 minutes cookies need. I wanted a nicely browned, crispy crust. I forgot to pay attention to how long it took, though. I let it cool completely before doing anything else to it.

I made ganache with the chocolate chips and some coconut cream. You get this by chilling a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator overnight. The cream rises to the top, so you can just scoop it out. Underneath is coconut water--save that and use it in something else. I did this after I mixed the dough while it was chilling in the refrigerator. I was hoping it would be plenty cool to whip into a nice topping once the cookie base was cooled. Sadly, that didn't happen, but I got the idea to spread a thin layer of the ganache on the cookie, then top that with whipped ganache once it was cooled and set.

It was at this point I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures. So I apologize for not having more. The ganache whipped up nicely. I quit beating it just before I thought it was thick enough, and it was a great consistency for spreading. I got impatient, though and added it too soon. The chocolate layer underneath wasn't yet completely set in the center.

I chilled the whole thing before cutting it into squares using a pizza cutter. I know they're uneven and not very delicate. Cutting the cookies made the crust crumble quite a bit in places, so if I try something like this again, I think I'll bake the dough in the cavities of a mini muffin pan and make tartlets. Only, the crust isn't as crisp the next day, so I'm not sure how well they'd hold a shape. I just ate one of these bar cookies from yesterday, and the cookie base is definitely softer. It still tastes delicious, but I preferred a more crunchy crust.

Gluten-Free Cupcakes (with chocolate icing)

I finally tried the Very Vanilla Cupcakes recipe in Elana Amsterdam's Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook. I've been wanting to make them ever since I got the book, but for one reason or another I just didn't get around to it. Probably because I usually end up making her chocolate chip cookies, which are exceedingly addictive and rarely last more than a few days around our house, if that long.
I get my almond flour from Honeyville. It's not cheap, so I've been waiting for them to have a sale or send out a coupon code, which they recently did. Today is the last day to take advantage of the coupon code, by the way! Enter PATRIOT at checkout for a 15% discount.

Once I had my new 5 pound bag of almond flour ordered and knew it was on its way, I decided to go ahead and use up the remnants of my current bag. Only, there was just over a cup left, and nearly all the recipes called for 2 cups or more. And I really wanted to make these cupcakes. So, reasoning that if the recipe made 10-12 cupcakes, I figured that half the recipe would make 5 or 6, which was a safer quantity for me to have on hand.

Halving the recipe wasn't the only change I made. I also subbed coconut oil for the grapeseed oil, and used maple syrup instead of agave nectar. I tend to always do that whenever I make one of her recipes. I'm not all that crazy about agave nectar, and I always have coconut oil on hand, whereas I rarely buy grapeseed oil. I didn't take pictures of the ingredients or recipe in process, and for that I apologize. But I do have photos of the finished product.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes, as I made them. For the original, full recipe, double the quantities and don't use the substitutions mentioned above.

1 large egg separated
1/8 cup/2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line the cavities of a standard muffin pan with paper baking cups.

Using an electric mixerwhisk the egg yolk until pale. This is easier said than done when using a counter top mixer because a single yolk really isn't enough for the beater to do anything with, so that's a lesson learned. Beat in the coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla, and lemon juice.

In another, clean and totally grease-free mixer bowl, whisk the egg white until still peaks form. Gently fold the egg white into the yolk mixture.

Combine the almond flour, baking soda, and salt in yet another bowl--yes, that's three mixing bowls I dirtied for just 6 cupcakes. I must have REALLY wanted some cupcakes, because I hate washing dishes. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, and evenly divide the batter between the muffin cups. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before icing. Oh, and the centers will sink. It says so in the book, so that's nothing I did wrong.

I made the chocolate frosting recipe also in Elana Amsterdam's book, as that's what she recommends icing these cupcakes with, and I'm a big fan of white cake with chocolate icing. Again, I made my usual substitutions, as well as used 60% cacao chocolate chips (her recipe calls for 73% cacao chocolate) since that was the darkest chocolate I had on hand.

 

Chocolate Frosting (I made the full recipe because I wanted leftovers)
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate with the coconut oil until smooth, then stir in the maple syrup, vanilla, and salt. Allow the chocolate to chill in the freezer for 10-15 minutes (don't forget about it!) and then beat with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes until it thickens and starts to look like frosting.

I filled a disposable piping bag with it, snipped of the end, and used that to ice the cupcakes. I knew this icing would be really rich, and I'm not a fan of the mile-high frosting mound that's so popular on cupcakes now, so I opted for no piping tip over the large star #1M I typically use. This way I could ice the cupcakes with just enough frosting. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator, but know that the icing will set up and harden, so leave the cupcakes out for a few minutes at room temperature before serving.

Overall, these came out okay. Almond flour is going to give you a coarser crumb than all purpose or cake flour, so I was ready for that. They actually taste a lot like the cookies in cupcake form. Considering how similar the recipes are, I suppose that's to be expected. I'll fess up and admit that I didn't test the cupcakes for doneness with a toothpick. I just saw that they were a lovely golden color and assumed they were ready. I think they could've used another 5 minutes baking time, though, because they're so moist that they're a bit gooey. Next time I'm making the full recipe.




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Zucchini Muffins

Based on the contents of my past few CSA boxes, zucchini is doing really well this year. Or at least there's a lot of it growing. It's a veggie that you can easily add to just about anything, and that's pretty much what I've been doing with it. Grated, it makes a wonderful "raw" pasta substitute, I love it lightly stir-fried with other veggies, it's delicious sauteed and added to salads, omelets, or whatever else is cooking, and then of course there's always zucchini bread. My grandmother used to make it every summer. She would bake it in loaves, and then sandwich softened cream cheese between thin slices. It tasted like cake, and I suppose it practically was the way she made it. YUM.

I started looking online for gluten free zucchini bread recipes, and I came across some zucchini mini muffins with chocolate chips over on Elana's Pantry. I love that website, and I have her Gluten Free Almond Flour cookbook, which I use regularly. She now also has a Gluten-Free Cupcakes book, which is now on my wish list, if anyone is feeling generous.

But I digress. Here is the Gluten Free Zucchini Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins recipe, and the only things I changed were my typical substitutions of using coconut oil for the grapeseed oil and maple syrup for the agave nectar. Oh, and I doubled the recipe because these muffins haven't been lasting any time around our house.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Mini-Muffins
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup maple syrup
1 ½ cups grated zucchini (do not pack down when measuring)
½ cup dark chocolate chips

Combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Set aside.

 

Combine eggs, oil, agave and zucchini. This bowl was plenty big enough the last few times I made this recipe, but I neglected to consider that this is a double recipe, and therefore required twice the space. I needed a bigger bowl.

 

Thoroughly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Then stir in the chocolate chips.

  

The recipe says to grease and flour the muffin tin, but I just used nonstick cooking spray. The first time I made this recipe, I lined the cavities with mini muffin cups, but the batter (and chocolate chips) then stuck to the paper, so this is one of those recipes that works better in a naked pan.

 

For mini muffins, spoon a tablespoon of batter into each cavity. I thought I'd have enough batter to make 12 standard size muffins as well since I doubled the recipe, but I only got seven. Bake at 350° for 18-22 minutes.

 

Some recipes work best if you make them as intended, and I think this one might fall into that category because the standard size muffins didn't come out as well, quite literally.

  

Once the muffins have cooled a few minutes, run a knife along the sides, and the minis pop right out. A few of the bigger ones weren't so cooperative. But they still taste delicious!

 

Do you have a favorite zucchini bread recipe? If so, leave a comment letting me know, and I might just try it--or attempt to make a gluten-free version of it.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are times when I really, really, want chocolate. Occasionally these times occur when I don't have any chocolate in the house apart from some Ghirardelli baking chips. Rather than just eating the chocolate chips, although they are nice enough to enjoy that way, I decided to make some gluten free chocolate chip cookies. I love the Elana's Pantry website, and I've tried making the chocolate chip cookie recipe in her Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook twice before, but with less than optimal results.


The first time I neglected to read the caveat of not using Bob's Red Mill almond flour in any of her recipes. Since it's the only brand almond flour that's readily available to me and what I had sitting on my pantry shelf, I used it, and she's right, it does not work in her recipes. By the time I got round to my second attempt I had some almond flour that I ordered from Honeyville. But I forgot to let the dough chill before baking, and the cookies spread out all over the baking sheet into one huge mess. It was a tasty mess, but still a mess, nonetheless.

This time I wanted to get it right. Except, I didn't have 2 of the necessary ingredients: grapeseed oil and agave nectar. So I used coconut oil and maple syrup instead. I also only had the Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips, not the 73% cacao used in her recipe.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract (gluten free)
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda in a bowl and whisk together.

  

In another bowl whisk the coconut oil, vanilla, and maple syrup until well combined. Now, because coconut oil is solid at room temperature, I put mine in a glass bowl and placed it on the oven while it was preheating, which melted it. BUT, when I added the cool maple syrup to it, that made the mixture go all clumpy and curdled as the maple syrup caused the coconut oil to go solid again. So, I placed that bowl on the oven until everything was the same temperature and I could whisk the ingredients into a smooth mixture.

  

Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and then fold in the chocolate chips.

  

Allow the dough to chill in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before scooping out onto the baking sheets, leaving a couple of inches in between each cookie. I used a 1 tablespoon sized disher for this.

I ran out of parchment paper, so I improvised by using Wilton parchment triangles to line my cookie sheets. I don't recommend doing this. Those things are designed to be formed into parchment piping bags, not used for baking, and some of my cookies stuck.

Bake for 7-10 minutes, and then cool on a wire rack. These came out much better than my previous attempts. I think I could have baked them another minute or so longer, because they're pretty chewy, but they're still delicious.

Now my only problem is that I can't stop eating them. So, while they don't last very long, at least they're easy to make.