Worlds Best Chocolate Chunk Cookies (Gluten/Grain/Egg/Starch/Sugar Free & Paleo)

Its Monday, its winter and naturally quite cold, the skies are grey. Those are all good reasons to make chocolate chunk cookies to brighten the day.

This morning I decided I wanted some cookies so I wandered into the kitchen and threw some ingredients into a bowl. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect these cookies to be the BEST chocolate chip cookie I have EVER had. Literally. They are crisp and chewy but also perfectly gooey on the inside. Best part? They will take you no more than 25 minutes start to finish.

My husband who doesn’t typically like sweets popped home for lunch and snuck out with a bag of every last cookie from my batch to take back to the office to eat with his coffee. I was stunned.. its a sure sign that the cookies are indeed as amazing as I thought they were.

This recipe is EASY- its flexible enough to adapt to meet your various dietary needs. Please use the following substitutions as needed:

• Instead of blanched almond flour feel free to use another homemade nut or seed flour. Sunflower seed flour reacts to baking soda and powder and turns green if you surpass a certain amount of baking powder per cup of flour. (I don’t know what this exact amount is and will be toying with this in the future.) This is something to be aware of if you try using homemade sunflower seed flour. If your cookies turn green- then try using less baking powder in the recipe than I have called for.
• To make your own Nut or Seed flour: simply run the nut or seed in a high powdered blender or coffee grinder until you have a super fine flour. (If the flour is course- the recipe might not work as well.)
• Coconut flour or any of the starchy grain based flours will NOT work in this recipe.
• The 1/2 cup of granulated sugar can be ANY variety. Cane, Sucanat, Coconut Palm Sugar. To make this recipe SUGAR FREE use xylitol or erythritol. Just make sure whichever sugar you use is granulated not liquid.
• For the Milk:  you can use any variety: Cows Milk, Goats Milk, Almond Milk, Coconut Milk, Soy Milk or Rice milk. Use what you have on hand. If you have none- you can just use water instead.
• For the Chocolate: I used a bar of Simply Light sugar free/ dairy free  dark chocolate. It can be found at Trader Joes or Whole foods. Any bar of chocolate can be used in this recipe.. additionally you can always just use allergen free chocolate chips or chunks from Enjoy Life.  In the recipe I recommend using 1-2 bars of chocolate.  I used 1 bar,  if you like your cookies loaded with chocolate go ahead and use up to 2 bars.

 

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

• 2 packed cups blanched almond flour (for subsustutions see note above)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used Erithritol see note above for other options)
• 1 Tsp. Baking Powder
• 1/4 Tsp. Salt
• 3 Tbs room temperature  Butter (Earth Balance, Goats Butter, Shortening or Coconut Oil will also work).
• 1 Tbs Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tbs Milk (dairy or nondairy)
• 1-2 Bars of  dairy free chocolate chopped into chunks (see note above for sugar free brand)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a large cookie sheet with either parchment paper or a baking mat to prevent sticking.
2. Chop your bar(s) of chocolate into chunks (as big or as small as you want them).
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer (by hand should work as well) combine all of the ingredients stirring in the chopped chocolate last.
4. Form 12 cookies with your hands into round / flat patties (I made mine 3/4 inch thick and about 3 inches wide). Note: This dough may be a little crumbly- don’t fret is thats the case!
5. Bake 16-17 minutes until the bottom and the edges start to look lightly golden brown. (Note: this baking time may vary pending the type of sugar that you use. I have noticed that when using Xyltiol and Erithritol that my baking time ends up needing to be a few minutes longer- so the best advice I can give is to keep an eye on yourcookies after the ten minute mark.)

Recipe Update: I made these again and toyed with the flavor a little and LOVED the results so I had to share:

Instead of using 1 full TBS of vanilla extract I split it up and used 1 Tsp of Almond Extract + 2 Tsp. Vanilla. The flavor was to die for!!  If you want to take the recipe to the next level try adding some dried cherries (or maybe even some fresh chopped) to the batter as well. (Cherries + Almond are a match made in heaven!).

Make these, you will thank me for telling you to do so.  

-Brittany-