Thursday, January 28, 2016

A tea party with myself

Today I had tea and cookies, and it was delightful.






The title says, "A tea party with myself," but actually Shawn was here.  He came home for lunch so we could drive the van over to the service station, which is why I made cookies in the first place (because Shawn was here, not because of the van).  However, while Shawn was home, he had to take a business call upstairs in the study, so I enjoyed the first cookie and some tea by myself, before he was available.

These cookies are from my niece Esther's blog.  Her way of making them is delicious.  I've followed her recipe exactly, and they are delectable.  With her method, they are both gluten-free, and dairy-free.  (Also, her pictures are artistic, unlike mine, which are utilitarian.  This is because she is an artist and uses a real camera.  I am not an artist, and I often just use my phone because it's so much faster.  If you want to see how truly beautiful these cookies can look, be sure to check out Esther's blog.)

I've developed some alterations to Esther's recipe, mainly to make the cookies easier to fit with my own kitchen habits, and not to improve the flavor, which was spot-on to begin with.  Shawn's philosophy is, "Make them however you are happiest making them, because if you are happier making them, you will make them more often, and that is good."

For starters, I just use butter instead of coconut oil.  I don't need to be dairy free.  At our house, I am always slathering the coconut oil on my body for a moisturizer, so we are often short of it, and what we have has been stored in the bathroom and exposed to many fingertips.  Hence, there is butter in my cookies.

Without further ado, here is the recipe:



Delicious Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 1 & 3/4 cups oat flour (optionally, you can sub 3/4 cup almond meal for 3/4 cup of the oat flour, and it is delicious)
  • 1/2 cup coconut flour (this is more than Esther uses)
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt (Esther uses sea salt, but I have used both sea salt and plain and don't detect a difference.)
  • 2/3 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs (Esther calls for an egg and an egg yolk, but I cringe at throwing away an egg white, even for a good cause.)
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. coconut extract 
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • (opt. 1/2-1 cup flaked coconut)
  • (opt. 1/2-1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans)

Mix dry ingredients (flours, soda, salt) and set aside.
Beat the butter until fluffy.  Beat in the sugar, and then the eggs, one at a time.  Beat in the extracts.  Carefully beat in the dry ingredients.  Stir in the chocolate chips (and coconut and walnuts, if you use them) by hand.

Form into balls with a soup spoon (make fairly large cookies).  Place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Chill or freeze until firm.  Bake at 350 for 8 minutes, then rotate cookie sheet and bake 4 more minutes.

I like to keep the dough in the refrigerator and just bake up one tray of cookies at a time.  The other day, I served this recipe to some friends, and they said, "These are really good. Nobody would ever have to know that they're gluten-free, because these are really good."

Confession:  Sometimes I tell people that stuff is gluten-free, kind of hoping that they will think it's going to be gross, and then they won't take any, and then I will get to have more.  I feel that this somewhat balances out the sadness of my not being able to eat any glutenous treats. 








7 comments:

Priscilla said...

They sound great.

Priscilla said...

I just noticed that you have another blog. I randomly pulled up this post. http://seekingwisdomcravinggrace.blogspot.com/2013/11/forgiveness-and-suffering.html
It was exactly what I needed to read tonight. Thank you 2 years later.

Priscilla said...

I especially liked this part that you wrote.

This means that we forgive others, as Christ did, by suffering the consequences of their sins. We bear the brunt. We suffer what the person who hurt us should rightfully suffer. And we do it because it's what Jesus did for us; it's the pattern He laid down. We, like Jesus, must hold out mercy and self-sacrifice to our enemies, rather than demanding vengeance. We must suffer, like Jesus, and entrust our souls to God, believing with all the faith He has given us that God Himself will take care of the ending.

This is very hard. It is unpalatable. But it is what the Bible says.

ruth said...

Hello Priscilla. Thank you for your comments. It is interesting that you ran into that post on my Seeking Wisdom blog. I had recently reposted it on this blog, on 12/02/2015. I was needing to hear it, myself. Somebody (John Piper? Someone John Piper quotes?) tells us how important it is for us to preach to ourselves. Primarily, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves, but sometimes other truths that flow from the gospel are fortifying as well. I find blogging to be a good vehicle whereby I can preach to myself.

Priscilla said...

I went back and looked. There are a lot of your posts that I haven't read during late Nov and Dec. I was very busy for a bit and fell behind on my blog reading. If I'm too far behind, I don't usually go back and try to read everything, but...in this case, I might. Maybe I missed something else that I'm supposed to read.

The post you wrote that I commented about was exactly what I needed to read and focus on. I said that it was "random" but I don't really believe that. I believe God directed me to run across it. It's not like any of the information was new to me....but I need to be reminded about those truths. Satan is such a liar and sometimes when I am off my guard, I slip into listening to him.

Shannon said...

Those cookies look yummy!! I think that if you want us to start avoiding GF foods, you'd better stop making delicious GF foods. :-)

Ruthie said...

I don't mind sharing GF foods with people I LOVE. I'd just rather not share with them with people who neither need nor appreciate them, like at a pot-luck where they're just sitting out on a tray for the masses. But here's the thing. I hate baking blind. I don't like to give away food I can't taste test for quality. So I am driven to develop tasty GF recipes to share, even when I'd rather not share them.