Dairy Free, Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies!
The other day I received a call from Kelly about a potluck at my children’s school. This superwoman who doubles as first grade room parent and I spoke about taking the “luck” out of potluck.
During our chat, we touched on the significance of children breaking bread together and sharing in the most important part of the meal - dessert! To accommodate the different dietary needs of the first graders in my son’s class, I developed a dairy-free, gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe. This updated classic is one of my favorites.
Kelly and I enlisted five moms to bake these tasty cookies for the potluck and I’ve posted the recipe here for them.
2 ½ cups blanched almond flour *
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup dagoba chocodrops
- Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
- Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
- Mix wet ingredients into dry
- Form ½ inch balls and press onto a parchment lined baking sheet
- Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
- Cool and serve
Makes 24 cookies
* Please note: Bob’s Red Mill almond flour does not yield successful results when used in this recipe. For more information regarding this matter please see my FAQs.
UPDATE: this recipe is now featured as my first in a series of video posts - click here to watch!
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Subscribe by Email to elanaspantry.com:Posted on May 30, 2007 in desserts by Elana
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Thank you Elana! Your chocolate chip cookies are amazing! You are a lifesaver! I recently had an allergy test that determined I am allergic to wheat, dairy, sugar (cane), and yeast (a tough combo for someone who loves ALL baked goods!). The only thing I needed to substitute in your recipe was the chocolate chips - and I found an alternative at Whole Foods (SunSpire grain sweetened chocolate chips with no cane sugar or wheat - I highly recommend them!) I LOVE these cookies and I cannot wait to make them again this weekend! AND I am looking forward to trying your other recipes!
Thanks again!
Karen
January 15th, 2008 3:03 pm
Karen, thanks for your great comment; I am so glad that you like these cookies and I hope you enjoy the other recipes on my site! Let me know how it goes.
Elana
January 24th, 2008 6:04 pm
Thanks for the recipe. I wanted to let you in on a little shortcut I often use for CChip cookies. Gluten Free Pantry yellow cake/cookie mix can be used too. I just follow the cookie recipe on the box then add 2 TBSP peanut butter (for taste) and a cup of CChips.
I also love there Borwnie mix, It’s even better if you also add a cup of CChips (I add nuts for protein to this too.)
My 6 and & 7 year old boys, and their class mates love these.
February 5th, 2008 7:34 pm
Thanks so much for the wonderful cookie recipe. I am just beginning to try to cut out wheat and dairy. I had to substitute the almond flour for affordability and because it’s what I already had in my pantry. Bob’s Red Mill gluten free All Purpose Baking Flour substitutes nicely. The cookies were light, a little crumbly, but oh so lovely.
July 1st, 2008 3:51 pm
I made the other choc. chip cookies last night with the butter… they are wonderfully amazing! I am wondering… since those taste EXACTLY like what I remember a chocolate chip cookie tasting like… how is the flavor of these with grape seed oil instead? How do you make them for the pizza place? The classic recipe? Those are just TOO good. I actually refrigerated most of the dough and I am making a couple at a time just for ME! I was just amazed by the recipe! I made it right from your instructions (only added a little more vanilla… no reason other than habit… I always add extra vanilla!) and they were fabulous. I took some over to my mom (who eats mostly grain-free and never eats refined sugars) and she thought they were wonderful, too! She also accused me of lying about the ingredients in the macadamia caramel candies… she thought for sure I was trying to poison her with milk maid caramels or at the very minimum large quantities of brown sugar mixed in!
So, if you have an answer on the taste of these with grape seed oil, I would appreciate it! Its too bad there is no “safe” butter flavoring to add…
July 20th, 2008 2:48 pm
Hi Chrissy,
I guess you live in Boulder if you’ve seen my cookies at the pizza place (O! Pizza). Those are made with grapeseed oil, no butter–the recipe above. Thanks for your comment and I’m glad you and your mom liked the macadamia caramels.
Elana
July 20th, 2008 3:47 pm
No, I used to live in Co Springs, and my sister recently moved from Boulder to the springs after 7 years there. I was just there a month ago and I googled gluten free restaurants and that one came up… then I saw the link on your side bar and put them together! I went to a really cool place for lunch with my sis in Boulder… it had this covered outdoor patio and I had this mexican pulled chicken thing with a homemade corn cake/tortilla thing that was divine… makes me want to book a flight out and go have that for lunch, swing by O! for pizza and cookies for dinner and hop back on a plane to come home! We have NO GF restaurants (other than chains) here in Nashville. I loved CO, and I thought your comment on the grain-free granola was TOO funny (using the term on your friends… I knew some very “crunchy granola” people when we lived there! LOL!).
Anyway, I am LOVING your website and experimenting with all these new recipes! I have baked with almond meal before… used the BRM, another one from some web site that I ordered, and made my own in the vitamix… and you are totally right about the one you use. I ordered the 5lb bag last week and I am amazed at how much better the baked goods turn out. The cookies are gone, except for maybe 5 or 6 that I did not bake yet and I am planning some muffins or your bread with cinnamon and nutmeg for tomorrow! I have yet to purchase the grapeseed oil though… so I am using butter. I am not CF as well, so its fine by me… as long as I dont eat the whole batch and start storing it all up for the winter! ;)
I also copied your glass jar idea and found a dozen quart size jars at the hardware store for just under $11! I filled up about 7 of them with nuts, granola, coconut flour, etc… they look so pretty! I dont know why I didnt think of that before!
If you ever do publish a cook book… sign me up for the first printing!
July 20th, 2008 7:52 pm
Chrissy-
Thanks so much for your kind words and yes, I will sign you up!
Elana
July 21st, 2008 10:27 am
Hi Elana,
I am prepared to be your biggest fan, but I am having a problem with both of the recipes that I’ve tried, these choco chip cookies with grape seed oil and the flapjacks. First let me say the flavor in both was amazing. But the consistency of the flapjacks was like water. I had to practically burn them to get them stable enough to turn over, but many just folded over into a sloppy mess. It was very frustrating and I almost stopped cooking them. But I did cook all of them and my husband and kids ate every last one.
For the cookies, I was so excited I made a double batch the first time. Again, the mixture was runny. I could not roll them into balls. I did not need to flatten them, as they oozed all by themselves and some ran off the pan while baking. I was certain I made a mistake. So the second time I made one batch, but the results were the same. The batter does not look like the firm batter you are confidently rolling into balls on the video. But the flavor was so good, and I am desperate for gluten, dairy free. So I ground one cup of raw oats and three tablespoons of raw flax seeds into flour and added it to the batter. These did need to be flattened or the center would not cook and came out raw. The flavor was good, the consistency better, but I adored the flavor of the original recipe. I don’t have your flair for experimentation- what would you add to bulk up these cookies- or can I cut some of the oil so they are not so runny?
Okay, am I crazy? Why won’t these recipes work for me?
July 22nd, 2008 10:52 pm
I made these the other night and everyone scarfed them down. I’m quickly beginning to cook a whole new way thanks to your yummy recipes.
July 22nd, 2008 11:13 pm
Pamela -Thanks for your comment; I am so very perplexed as I have now gotten this from several people. The thing that is tricky is that the recipes seems to work for the majority, though when it doesn’t, what happened in your case is the outcome. I am going to bake these (for the umpteenth time) tonight and do several control groups. I think what might be happening is that if the dough is hotter than room temp from over mixing with a beater that might heat it up and cause it to splay out? I will be working on this issue –can’t let it remain as such.
Eden -Thanks for the report, glad y’all liked ‘em.
July 23rd, 2008 4:59 pm
The flavour of these cookies is amazing!! Thanks so much for the recipe, I tried it today, however I had similar results as Pamela. I’m wondering if the ‘balls’ it was rolled into were too big/close together or if they weren’t cooked enough? I put them in the oven for the full 10mins. Are they supposed to be kind of crunchy or chewy or what kind of texture when they are done? I hoped tey would harden up when they cooled but they didn’t really. I had no idea what to do with them (apart from craping 3 of them off the baking paper with a spoon and eating them ;) so I put them in the freezer for the moment, any advie would be amazing! xo
August 3rd, 2008 10:07 pm
Mine also came out more like batter than dough, and spread out everywhere. The cookie that came out of my oven looked nothing like your picture. I added 1/2 c. sweet potato to the second tray of cookies and that came out a little better but had to be cooked 14 minutes. What am I doing wrong?
August 4th, 2008 1:43 pm
Kathy & Pandie,
What type of almond flour did you use?
Elana
August 4th, 2008 3:56 pm
Hi Elana,
It’s clear to me that the almond flour I used caused the receipes to fail. I used Bob’s Red Mill almond flour the first time, and ground my own flour in my blender the second time.
Thanks again following up with me. I’m excited to order the correct flour and try again.
Pamela
August 6th, 2008 8:51 pm
Hi,
I was wondering if your kids adhere to a gluten free diet?
We are just starting the gc free diet with our son and I have little idea what to send him for lunch and snacks. His school is also nut free.
Thanks,
E.
August 7th, 2008 7:31 am
Elana,
I am loving your recipes. My daughter can’t have gluten,wheat, soy, eggs,corn,grapes plus many other things. Can I substitute the eggs with the egg sub. mix ( that is egg free) and can I substitute the grape oil with something else? She can’t have grapes. Iwas looking at the bread recipe and the choc. chip cookie recipe/
Thanks,
Ann
August 12th, 2008 7:41 am
Pamela -Thanks so much for reporting back and staying in touch!
Elizabeth -Yes, my boys do adhere to a gluten-free diet; I’m not sure what I would do though if they went to a nut free school. This would be a great question to post in my forums.
Ann -Thanks for stopping by; for more info on substitutions please see my faq’s. There is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that uses butter on my site, you can find it here.
August 12th, 2008 10:27 am
We have cookies!! Wow, mind blowing, ate only cookies for dinner and ignored the grilled Ahi Tuna kind of cookie craziness. These have got to be the best cookies I have ever eaten in my life. They were crisp on the edges and soft and chewy in the center. They didn’t melt into a uni-cookie all over my oven. The taste was sublime, melt in your mouth, old tollhouse recipe but ten times better than what I made when I was 16 type of cookie.
Changes I made this time around:
Finally ordered the Honeyville almond flour, then I realized I was out of sea salt and grapeseed oil. I went to Whole Foods market and purchased the celtic sea salt, surprise, it was bitingly flavorful. Then I bought Napa Valley Naturals Grapseed Oil. I was nervous; it was pale green and smelled somewhat strong.
The grapeseed oil and sea salt I previously used was a Trader Joe’s brand. The oil was colorless and odorless, the salt was well, salt. Because of this my first batches tasted good but gently greasy.
To combat the soupy batter from my first two attempts, this time I reduced the oil to 1/3 cup, and increased the almond flour by ¼ cup (firmly packed). Another difference this time around, my four-year-old twin girls weren’t in the kitchen “helping” mommy bake. Now I could concentrate and change the ingredients slowly until I had moldable dough.
I would strongly recommend using the exact brand of ingredients that Elana recommends in this recipe; otherwise you are simply making another type of cookie. Also, if your batter is runny, try the reduced oil and increased flour that I did. Thanks Elana, for combining inconceivable ingredients into a superb treat. I have to go back into the kitchen an eat another one right now.
August 16th, 2008 11:15 pm