Sunday 20 January 2008

Giganti-Hugeous Crisp Cookie Thins

I wanted to try and make some wheat free cookies for one of my work mates who is on a wheat free diet. Rather than using an existing wheat free cookie recipe I decided to try and replace the wheat flour in a standard cookie recipe with a wheat and gluten free flour I had picked up at the supermarket.

The cookie dough came together well and seemed to be of a good texture and consistency and I was feeling relatively confidant they would turn out ok. I added some chopped chocolate orange chunks for flavour and spooned small teaspoonfuls out onto a baking sheet. The recipe said the cookies would spread so I left quite a bit of room in between each one. When the baking time was up I opened the oven door to find the cookies hadn’t spread a little, but had melted into huge thin flat cookies that were merging together. Eppp!

I tried again, placing fewer spoonfuls on each sheet and leaving plenty of room. The second batch turned out better, they were still huge but at least they did look vaguely cookie shaped. The texture of the cookies was very crisp and crumbly. They were also quite brittle and had a slightly gritty texture from the rice flour that was part of the mix. I was quite disappointed in their flavour, they were sweet yet had quite a savoury note to them.

I took them to work anyway where they received mixed responses. Some people hated them while others quite liked their unusual texture. It was decided that they resembled more of a French langue de chat biscuits than a soft chocolate chip cookie but they would make quite good cookies to serve with deserts. So they were a successful (sort of) but not really as a soft and chewy cookie. I’ll have to try again another time.

Crisp Cookie Thins
(Recipe adapted from Waitrose.com)
Ingredients
100g butter
50g soft light brown sugar
50g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
125g wheat and gluten free flour (or ordinary plain flour)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g chocolate orange, chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Place the butter and sugars into a bowl and beat together until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and egg and then sift over the flour and bicarbonate of soda.
Fold in the flour followed by the chocolate.
Drop teaspoons of cookie mixture onto the baking tray leaving A LOT of space between each one.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden around the edges.
Transfer to a cooling wrack straight away and leave to cool.
Make 16 cookies.

10 comments:

eatme_delicious said...

Aw well even though they didn't turn out as planned it's great that you were adventurous in baking a wheat free treat!

Gigi said...

They important thing is the gesture. Now that you have a bag of gluten free flour, you can experiment with other recipes and thats the fun part.

Johanna GGG said...

It is a real eye opener to try gluten free flour and see the world from a different perspective - I think it was a wise move to have some chocolate in them - everything tastes good with chocolate :-)

My experience with trying gluten free flour is that it depends on the brand of flour (some GF ones are better than others) but also that it tastes different to wheat so you have to change your mindset - I have been enjoying a few cashew nut butter GF recipes and have lots more to try still!

Anonymous said...

They do look like langues du chat! It's always fun to experiment. From my experience gluten-free stuff does taste different and if you are not expecting it it can be a bit strange. It's probably best to go for something with more flavour so you're not tasting the flour. I had gluten free brownies without even realising the other day!

M'nMs said...

Wow, gluten free and don't look it!They look tasty - thin crispy cookies are perfect sometimes! The shapes are kinda cute ...my niece goes- how about gingerbread men stuffed after all the holiday meals ;)

Cakespy said...

I would totally eat these! They look very homey and yummy!

Anonymous said...

Oh definately going on my must try list!!! Sounds yummy!!!

Cheryl said...

Those cookie are great. You could name the ones that spread into each other "hourglass cookies".

Anonymous said...

Hey there,

My experience with GF cookies is chill those babies before you bake. They're less likely to spread out. Also - have a squiz at using a thickening agent to bind them. :)
Check out Shauna's site (glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com) - she has some fab recipes. My best friend is gluten/dairy/corn/soy intolerant, Shauna's site is a lifesaver!

Good luck!

Katie said...

Hey Amy,
Thanks for the the link and tip - I'll try that next time :)