January 18, 2011

How's winter treating you? Around here, it feels like one storm after another. Last week, during one of those storms, I wanted a cookie. Badly. Storms do these things to people! You want cookies and you want them now!

Since there were no cookies in the house I needed to bake a batch, which was fine with me. Baking during a storm gives me something to do and allows me to avoid laundry.

I mentioned on Facebook that lately I've had a thing for chocolate-covered raisins. Isn't it great how tastes change? For years, I didn't like raisins. Now, I'm a fan. Staying with my newfound love for chocolate-covered raisins, I decided to make a batch of chocolate-chip-raisin oatmeal cookies. Only I didn't stop there.

When I went to pull the raisins and chocolate chips off my shelf of “stuff”, I noticed coconut. The bag came off the shelf. Then I spotted the bag of almonds. It, too, came off the shelf. Finally, I noticed the bag of flaxmeal. And, you guessed it, it joined the other ingredients on my table. Now cookies with just chocolate chips and raisins seemed boring!

I didn't want to build a cookie recipe from scratch, I decided to modify my tested oatmeal cookie recipe. In addition to replacing the white rice flour with brown rice flour, I also dropped the cornstarch. The cookies, thanks to all the ingredients I decided to add, just didn't need the structure of the starch to hold them together.

And the result? Let's just say they were so good, I didn't even mind the weather. 

Dry Ingredients

1 1/4 cups brown rice flour

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed meal

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups gluten-free oats

3/4 cup raisins

1/2 cup sweetened, flaked coconut

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped almonds

Wet Ingredients

3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In small mixing bowl, whisk together brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, baking soda ground flaxseed meal, cinnamon, and salt.
3. In bowl of stand mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar until a thick paste forms, about 45 seconds. Add eggs, one at time, scraping down bowl between each addition of egg. Cream, on medium-high speed, until butter mixture is light and fluffy.
4. Add vanilla. Blend until incorporated. Stop mixer. Add whisked dry ingredients. Blend, on medium speed, until a dough forms. Stop mixer. Add oats, raisins, chocolate chips, coconut, and chopped almonds. Blend, on low speed, until ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.
5. Drop dough, about one tablespoon each, onto prepared baking sheet. Bake until aromatic and lightly golden brown, about 15 minutes.
6. Repeat until all dough is used.