To Bake or Not to Bake

Today's lunch consisted of carrot-cashew-ginger soup from Pacific Organic Soups (you can get this stuff in most grocery stores on the west coast. They make great organic soups) and a wheat wrap with homemade hummus, ZOI greek yogurt (which, oddly, I can only find at WinCo/Waremart), and tomatoes. So, I figured that while I was eating, I'd do another post to fill in some time gaps.

As promised, here are the recipes for the cookies I made last night. Yes, they're completely gluten free! Not so great if you have nut allergies, but they're gluten free. I've become a bit of a baking god at my mother's place of business, so I'm always finding new things to make for her co-workers (including the two gluten-free eaters who always get left out).

Today's recipes are: Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies and Flourless Nutella Cookies.


Flourless Nutella Cookies

Disclaimer: These are extremely chocolatey. Very similar to the chocolate chunk chewies you get from Vons/Safeway. If you aren't a complete choco-holic, you may not want to make these. (My fiance' is and I made them for him... in which he promptly came down with food poisoning before they were done and couldn't even eat them. Go figure.) For those of you not in the know; Nutella is made by the Ferrero company and is a chocolate spread that is a tad bit thinner than peanut butter made with Hazelnuts and Cocoa. The ingrediants are all fairly simple (I.E. cocoa, skim milk, hazelnuts, etc.), and it really isn't all that bad for you (in moderation, of course).

*1 cup Nutella
*1 cup peanut butter (I used 'natural' creamy, but you can use whatever you want)
*2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
*1 Cup of Splenda Baking Mix (or 2 cups of regular sugar)
*2 large beaten eggs
*2 teaspoons of vanilla extract**

 *1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (Optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. (I used wax paper and sprayed it very lightly with PAM. I found it got the cookies off a bit easier.)

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. This can be done with a wooden or plastic spoon very easily. Or, for the lazy, use a hand mixer.

Use a regular spoon and drop small scoops onto the parchment paper. Depending on the size of your cookie balls, you'll need to cook them between 10 to 15 minutes. It took me a few tries to figure out when to get them out - if the middle of the cookie is still glossy, give it another two to three minutes.

Cool almost completely before removing them from the wax paper. (If you don't and try too soon, you'll break the cookie in half.)

When completely cool, store in a sealed container. The dough can be prepared a few days ahead and stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

**Notes:  If you want to add flour, 1/2 cup will give you a more cakelike, puffy cookie (and they do have gluten free baking flour, so use that if you so desire). The nutella, once baked, loses a lot of the hazelnut flavor. If you want to add flavor, replace the vanilla with orange/almond/peppermint/etc. extract instead. These cookies are extremely chewy, and the middle tends to be a little raw if not cooked properly. Also, make sure the walnut pieces are pretty small. They can affect how the cookie cooks and how easily they come off the parchment (as I discovered...).

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Disclaimer: These cookies are not chewy like you'd expect, but rather on the more crunchy side, but still very good. Perfect for the diabetic (like my mother) who really wants peanut butter cookies. I've been trying for awhile to make a good set of flourless cookies for my mother who loves peanut butter cookies, and this is the best recipe I've ever used.

    * 1  cup  peanut butter (I used creamy)
    * 1/2 cup of Splenda Baking Mix (or 1 cup of regular sugar)
    * 1 large egg, beaten
    * 1 teaspoon baking soda
    * 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350*F and grease cookie sheets (I used baking spray).

Beat together peanut butter and sugar in a large bowl until smooth (I used a wooden spoon for this, but again, for the lazy, a hand mixer is quicker).

Add the beaten egg and baking soda to peanut butter mixture and mix until well combined.

Roll 1 teaspoon of dough into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Place dough balls one inch apart on cookie sheet and flatten with tines of fork making a cross pattern. (Okay, so mine weren't a teaspoon. I just pinched off a bit of dough that I thought looked right and made all the cookies roughly the same size. Mine were probably closer to 1 1/2 tablespoons. lol)

Bake until puffed and a pale golden brown color. This takes between 10-15 minutes, depending on your cookie size.

Cool cookies on baking sheet about 2 minutes and then transfer with spatula to rack to cool.


**Notes: Do not make these as 'drop' cookies, they'll come apart. The dough is thick enough that you can roll them into balls and use the tines of a fork to make the crisscrossed pattern on them. Do not forget the baking soda, or you're cookies won't come out right.

So, that's it! My next recipe is going to attempt Cashew Cheese sauce for Macaroni, since I've had it before.

We'll see how that works out.