Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been thinking about cookies recently. Warm, with gooey chocolate chips, dark chocolate. The smell of them baking. Savouring them with a warm, bitter, creamy cup of coffee. The cookies are the sugar.

Gluten-free living has turned me into a baker. I have had to start from scratch. Find and try new recipes because my old ones will no longer work with the new flours. Yes, you can substitute GF flour mixes cup-for-cup for wheat flour in recipes. It is possible but the results are not always the same or good. Gluten flour reacts differently to moisture than all my various gluten-free flours.

Secretly, I admire gluten. He does something special to food. He was versatile, forgiving, and allowed for great creativity. I am left in a void, a vacuum without him in my life. I have to relearn everything it seems- it's fun but also frustrating. This is sounding a little like a break-up spiel. I think of gluten fondly, with a little longing. I am happy he is gone from my life. I feel well again without him, but he did do some wonderful things for food.

I actually do not eat cookies often, homemade or store-bought. They are not something that I make frequently or that I am tempted into buying at coffee shops. I have had my favourite recipe since I was 15- two of them actually. An oatmeal raisin and a soft chocolate chip recipe. I very rarely try new cookie recipes. My old standards are amazing and completely satisfying. Every time.

Since making this lifestyle swap I have tried a few GF chocolate cookie recipes and I have come to this conclusion. I am sticking with my old standby recipe. Amazingly, it does work for the cup-for-cup swap. I keep my flour mixes heavy on the starches and I add a 1/4 tsp cream of tartar. And, interestingly, to achieve that rounded cookie I crave, it works best when I cover the dough and allow it to sit over night in the fridge.

I have followed this advice of numerous blogs in this though: I bake them for precisely 12 minutes for thawed and 14 minutes for frozen; and then I allow them to sit on the warm pan for two to three minutes before removing to a wire rack. Yes, they will look under done but resist the urge to leave them in the oven for longer. If you try to put them on the rack right away, they may try to fall apart on you. Let them sit briefly. I don't know why this method works, but it does.

I personally am a huge fan of the warm chocolate chip cookie. When I decide to make a batch of cookies I will mix them up, bake a few to eat right away, and then the rest are rolled into slightly flat balls and frozen. This way I can bake up two or three cookies anytime I crave a dessert or a late night treat- or if I need a dessert for company. They will keep well in an air-tight container in the freezer for months. And this way, being single and the only one to empty the cookie jar, I am not forced to consume thousands of calories worth of cookies within a few days. It's win-win.

If you do choose to bake them all, they are just as good the next day. I have tested this out, just so I can report it to you. Cookies for breakfast- not healthy, but they did taste great. As long as you don't over bake them, they do not turn into those brittle, grainy disks that I am sure most gluten-free people know about.

You want my recipe? Someone is going to have to post a request for it...