Recipe Review: King Arthur's Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been putting off doing some true, from-scratch, gluten free baking for a while now. I've been baking for a long time and I have always loved it but this entire world of gluten free baking scares me. Have you seen some of the ingredients? Therefore, I've mostly only baked from mixes up to this point. 

As I've mentioned in past posts, among other things, I've made some brownie and cake mixes with mixed results. I've used gluten free Bisquick with very mixed results. And, more recently, have played around with Pamela's flour blends and mixes with better results. The Pamela's baking has been as close to from-scratch baking as I've gotten up until now.

Enter King Arthur's Gluten Free All Purpose Flour. I bought a box of this shortly after I was diagnosed, way back in June. I used it recently in my mac & cheese but I've really been wanting to get into some of that baking I miss. Ya know, the "throw a couple sticks of butter on the counter to soften and make sure you have enough eggs and brown sugar" kind of baking. At least that's how it goes in my house as I'm always running out of brown sugar and eggs. Why hadn't I dug right into this box of flour? What was I afraid of? King Arthur ruled my baking world prior to my diagnosis. Their catalog comes to my mailbox. I've been to their store a couple times. I only bought King Arthur brand flour. I always referenced their website and cookbooks for recipes. Why did I think they would not come through in my new, gluten free world?

Well, I decided it was time to find out if the King would continue to rule. I knew the brownie mix was amazing. Like, "is this really gluten free?" amazing. Would the chocolate chip cookie recipe be as amazing?

For the most part, yes. It's pretty darn good. 

I read through the recipe and also, the reviews. King Arthur's site is great as they have their staff respond to some of the negative reviews. Usually it's with offers of troubleshooting via their 1-800 number but sometimes they reply with troubleshooting tips right there on the review and that, to me, is invaluable advice. Especially to a new baker or to like me, a new-to-gluten-free baking-baker.

In reading the reviews, I learned that a couple reviewers were having issues with an ever present problem with gluten free baked goods, grittiness. What I loved was one of the descriptions of the residue that the cookies left in your mouth that was described as "microsand". Yes, gluten free food is so much fun to eat and describe. The King Arthur staff left some feedback about the xanthan gum and I had an "a-ha" moment. They're not only one of my favorite 80's band, a-ha moments are very helpful in gluten free baking too. 

The directions for these cookies instruct that you refrigerate them for at least an hour or up to 2 days. I get it, I can do that. However, I can see why some may be tempted to skip that step, we want cookies NOW. This does seem to be an integral part of keeping the cookies as grit-free as can be, as I learned from the staffer who commented on the review. I do love to know the reasons as to why I'm doing things and while I understand you can't explain EVERY single step in a recipe, things like this would be good to know. The staffer explained to the reviewer that refrigerating the dough helps to hydrate and activate the xanthan gum, reducing it's grittiness. A-ha. I don't know a lot about xanthan gum and I have a feeling I don't want to know about it. I will investigate that another day. But, now I know the longer I refrigerate the dough, the more I may reduce it's tendency to be gritty. 

The cookies were very typical to throw together. You beat the butter with the sugar, add the dry ingredients, add your chips. You have cookie dough. You refrigerate. You bake. You have cookies. The only two things I changed were that I used dark brown sugar and I added about 1/3 cup more of extra chocolate chips since I skipped the nuts. The light brown sugar I had was possibly cross contaminated since my husband had made apple crisp and I don't know if he double dipped with the flour measuring cup he used. 

I always have a rule when I bake cookies. You must taste them at every stage of warmth, right out of the oven and right through to room temperature. Here's how it went.

Out of the oven-

You could taste a bit of "microsand". Although, I would liken it more to a wheat germ texture. It almost tasted like a sneaky mom threw some wheat germ into the cookie dough to make this treat just a wee bit more healthy for her youngins. The cookies were good though. Very Toll House-ish. Homemade goodness was there, for sure.

Still warm-

The cookies continued to taste like mom was being sneaky with the wheat germ but now the cookie was firming up and it was really tasting so good. Woo-hoo. Baking from scratch can happen in a gluten free world and taste good. 

Room temp-

I'm definitely making these again and King Arthur is going to at least rule my gluten free chocolate chip cookie world. Wheat germ texture is minimized as it's cooled but still there towards the end of the cookie. The butter flavor is wonderful, it really shines through. I'm not sure these would completely fool anyone who isn't gluten free because of that bit of a wheat germ texture. In every other way they are the real deal though. Soft, chewy, chocolate chippy...so very good! 

Making this recipe has given me hope. Every time I play in my new gluten free world and have a little success, I have hope. My world certainly didn't end when I got my diagnosis, not even close. However, for those who know me, they know how very much I loved my world of all things baking. Celiac disease felt like a pretty cruel diagnosis for someone who loved to play with flour as much as I did. I truly enjoyed baking and to know that my hobby was wrecking my insides kind of blows my mind at times. 

However, I am learning that I can still bake. This little experiment here is proof. It's certainly not the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever had and I'm definitely limited to what I can do with my mixer (that I bought at King Arthur, by the way) but time will certainly help me to develop my abilities just as it did with wheat flour baking. It took years for me to learn the basics there so that I could venture off on my own and get creative. I just have to be patient and learn all over again, one basic recipe at a time. One down, many more to go!

Gluten Free Apple Crisp

This has always been my go-to apple crisp recipe with a bunch of tweaks. I'm not super fond of apple crisp. My idea of dessert does not always include something that has fruit in it, even if the fruit is surrounded with all kinds of not good for you stuff. However, this has enough not good for you stuff that I can tolerate it. 

I wondered if I could do this gluten free. I figured apple crisp would be one of the easier things to convert since there are easy substitutions for the gluten containing ingredients that it does contain. I gave it a whirl and I do believe I have success. 

I had Bob's Red Mill gluten free oats on hand so those were used for the oats. Oats are gluten free but from what I understand, they are almost always processed on the same equipment as wheat so it's very important that if you are using oats to make sure at they are gluten free. I also understand that some people with celiac disease have a hard time tolerating oats as well. I've not found this to be the case so far for myself, luckily.

The flour I used was a mixture of the little bit of Trader Joe's gluten free all-purpose flour I had left and a little bit of King Arthur's gluten free all-purpose flour. 

In keeping with the original purpose of my blog of buying more consciously, I did do a few things to go along with that. I used Cabot butter because they are a farmer owned company and free of growth hormones. While the apples I used were not organic, they were Eco-Grown apples. This method uses less pesticides and less toxic ones at that, as I am I understanding from their website. I also used real organic maple syrup. I love that BJ's, my area warehouse store, has this at such an excellent price. I feel very fortunate about that.

If you're not gluten free you can certainly make this with non gluten free ingredients.  I did for years. Throw some vanilla ice cream on top and enjoy it, gluten free or not!

 

Gluten Free Apple Crisp

Adapted from:  Maple Apple Crisp at Allrecipes.com

- 5 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (I slice them and throw them in the baking dish to see how it's filling up and add more as needed)

- 2 tbsp gluten free all-purpose flour

- 3/4 tsp cinnamon

- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- 3/4 cup pure maple syrup (not pancake syrup)

- 1 cup gluten free all-purpose flour

- 1 cup gluten free whole rolled oats

- 1 cup brown sugar, packed

- 1 pinch salt

- 1 stick butter (please don't use margarine, the taste will be so much better)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put prepared apples into a large bowl with flour, cinnamon and nutmeg and toss until apples are coated with flour and spices. Place apples into an 8x8 baking dish. Pour maple syrup evenly over apples. Set baking dish aside.

Wipe the apple mixing bowl dry and put the flour, oats, brown sugar and salt into it. Stir together until everything is thoroughly mixed together. Cut butter into about 8 pieces and put the pieces into the bowl. With your hands, get in there and mix it all up until it's completely combined. 

Top the apples in the baking dish with the dry mixture. Make sure to evenly cover it, get the corners. Everyone needs their fair share of topping!  

Pop this in the oven for about 35-45 minutes, or until the apples are tender. It will get very bubbly but I've not had a problem with the juices flowing over. If you do notice that it looks like that's going to happen, just slip a baking sheet under it.

Pamela

I first noticed Pamela at Whole Foods. Couldn't help it. Her package of chocolate chip walnut cookies looked wonderful. You could see the cookies through the packaging and they looked pretty fantastic. I passed them by the first couple times I had the need to buy gluten free cookies. When they went on sale, I did finally pick up a package. I didn't dig in right away. As always, I was and still am battling a few (well, more like 10) pounds and was holding out on opening these up. Truth be told, I should have left them at the store. 

Before I had opened them up, I started reading Elizabeth Hasslebeck's book, "The G Free Diet". She even mentioned Pamela in her book. If I remember correctly she mentioned that even her non-gluten free family members get into her Pamela's cookies. I had a good feeling about this chick, Pamela.  

When I did finally give into the call of the cookies, they were amazing.  So much better than any of the other brands of cookies I had tried up to that point. They were a nice size, more than one or two bites. They had some thickness to them. They had a wonderful texture, so wonderful. As you may have noticed by now, I've got a lot of texture issues that are only enhanced now with trying to adapt to the new texture of gluten free foods. I would buy these cookies even if I did not have to eat gluten free, they are that good. 

Moving on...

I made my way to a natural food store a few towns over and was so thrilled to find a ton of gluten free foods and they were at decent prices. Their sale prices were even better. They were aware of Pamela too. They had her flour blends and mixes on sale. I'd seen these also at Whole Foods but hadn't paid too much attention to them because at the time, I was still hesitant about paying the price for these mixes. 

However, this was the day I got over it and realized that if I were to ever bake again that I needed to accept the fact that it was going to cost more money. Also, I had to accept the fact that it was very likely that I would fail a lot at the beginning and be wasting some of that money I was spending on these ingredients. I opted for the bread mix and flour blend since I have been missing making bread so very much.

I've had success with the mix.  There has been nothing technically wrong with the things I've made with this blend/mix.  

I first made the Amazing Bread recipe from the back of the bag. It was easy to put together. I love that you don't have to knead gluten free bread...no gluten to develop!  It rose like I couldn't believe. It looked lovely when it came out of the oven. It looked lovely when I sliced it. It tasted great and had a really decent texture. There was something though, I don't know what it is. The more I ate it, the more I wasn't so sure about it. I can't say it was the taste and I can't say it was the texture.  It just wasn't as pleasing as I wanted it to be, I guess.  

I even have a very not-fancy picture of it:

I can't say that I won't make it again and give it another try. I rather think I'd like to make the Cinnamon Bread variation of it that is also on the back of the bag then cut it in thick slices and make French toast with it. That, I think, is what this may be more suited for. Lots of flavor to go along with it.

I then made the Crispy Buffalo Wings found on the Pamela's website. The website is amazing for recipes. It's broken down really well. You can search by meal, type, product or diet. There are 10 pages of recipes for the bread mix and flour blend! The wings were really good. I tweaked it to use boneless chicken breast tenders and we each picked our own sauce to dip them in once they were done. I actually ate them plain as I thought the flavor of the breading was very good. It was a success but I hate frying so I don't know how soon I'll be making it again. Plus, all that frying does not help that 10 pounds that's stuck to me.

The third and final thing I've made up to this point is the Fococcia recipe from the website. I touched on this a bit in another post but, I had hoped that this bread recipe would be different from the Amazing Bread recipe because it omitted the eggs that the Amazing Bread recipe required. I really couldn't even tell the difference at all between the two. I put some coarse sea salt on it before I baked it and it wasn't bad. It kind of tasted like a soft pretzel....kind of. I still was not thrilled with the bread. 

At this point, I wasn't sure how I was feeling about Pamela. I loved her cookies (I also tried the swirled shortbread in the meantime) but was having a love/hate relationship with her flour blend that I had bought.

I had mentioned last week that my husband was having some travel trouble. He was in California. Near where he stays when he goes there is a grocery store called Mother's Market & Kitchen. He tells me I would absolutely love it. I'm sure I would. He asked if I wanted him to look for anything special there when he went this last time. I looked up their ad and saw that they had Pamela's mixes on sale. I looked up the kinds of mixes and blends on the Pamela's website and sent him a list. 

I noticed two things on the website that I had not seen around here. One was a Pizza Crust Mix that looks like a new product and the other was a product called Whenever Bars that came in different flavors, one being Oat Chocolate Chip Coconut. I put these on my list hoping they'd have them. Turns out they did and, they totally have made Pamela my new bestest friend.

First off, the bars. So good. Another thing I'd totally eat even if I didn't have to eat gluten free. They are so easy to grab in the morning when I haven't had time to feed myself. There's nothing too special about them but they are soft, chocolate-y, coconut-y, oat-y...it's all stuff I'm a huge fan off and I'll be grateful if they show up on the shelves around here.  

Now, and I think, more importantly, the Pizza Crust Mix. 

Look...

Not only is it another not-fancy picture, it is pizza that turned out really, really well. 

I was so nervous to make this. The directions were saying to handle the dough very gently. What if I was a little too un-gentle with it? The pressure. I mixed it all up and set it aside in a warm spot to rise. While the bread mix rose like crazy, this seemed like it hardly rose at all. Was the yeast it came with bad? After 2 hours, I decided to go for it. It did seem to rise some so I figured at least something happened. I divided the dough into two 10 inch pizzas, pre baked as instructed then topped them off and finished baking. 

Still very nervous, despite the fact that they looked good, I took my first bite. It was good. Really good! The texture was totally different than that of the bread mix. I suspected that there may be tapioca flour in it based on the Against The Grain copy cat recipe I had made. I checked the ingredients and sure enough, there was some in it. When I got to the end, the crust, I was so happy...it was crunchy! I've not yet experienced crunchy/crusty bread yet unless I've accidentally burnt my bread under the broiler trying to toast it because we still have not gotten a second toaster for me to avoid cross contamination when I want toast. I cannot tell you how happy I am with this pizza crust mix. I did try another brand, I can't even recall the name of it, and it pretty much tasted like a biscuit, not good for pizza. This however, is just lovely.  

I checked the list of ingredients in Pamela's Artisan Flour Blend and they are somewhat similar to the Pizza Crust Mix ingredients. This will be my next purchase from Pamela's line. I'm trying to not get my hopes up too high but I am somewhat hopeful that this blend will produce a bread that is a little more pleasing to me. The little I've played with tapioca flour, I've noticed it does seem to produce a gummy result but I'm hopeful that it being balanced with the other flours that are in the Artisan blend that it will work out to make something that will be just right.

I will be sure to post my results when I get it and I might even post a not-fancy picture or two! 

 

Spummy

Is that a word? Well, I am making it one.

Introducing, "Spummy", the combination of spongey and gummy that describes a fair amount of gluten free baked goods. 

If you read my post from yesterday, yes...that does make 2 blog posts in a row...don't get used to it though, I had a gluten free Bisquick coffee cake in the oven. It smelled wonderful as I typed away. My son came home from school, smelled it and exclaimed, "apple crisp?". I made him keep guessing, since he was wrong, and then told him it was coffee cake when he guessed every other fall dessert. There was excitement in the air, I tell you. I'd been craving cinnamon something for a while now. A couple days ago it was cinnamon rolls. Then, after I saw this recipe, I wanted coffee cake. In between it was all the fall recipes starting to float around that all inevitably have cinnamon in them. It was finally THE day. The day I was going to have a cinnamon baked good.

One reason I made it was for dessert. I was going to make a nice dinner for the family since my husband had been traveling since late last week. He'd had a nightmare of an ordeal at the airport and there was now no way he was making it home for dinner. Now, I had to figure when was appropriate to dig in. Did I wait until he came home later and have some with him for a snack? As the day went on it seemed more and more it'd be a midnight snack if I waited, his 1 hour layover ended up turning into about 7 hours. My son and I decided to just dig in...we wait for no one when it comes to cake.

It looked lovely. Nice streusel topping. I cut into it and the cake had risen nicely, had a good looking crumb and color. The texture looked good. It did not crumble to pieces when I cut it or tried to get that first piece out that can be troublesome. You know what this is all leading up to, right?

Spummy. 

How can something that looks so much like the real thing taste so much not like the real thing? Oh dear. Where do I begin?

To start off, many of the reviewers on the official Bisquick website indicated that this cake needed moisture. I took their word for it. That Betty Crocker yellow cake I mentioned in yesterday's post was so terribly dry, I knew they were onto something. A majority of the reviewers added oil and sour cream to the cake and some substituted agave for the sugar. I did not have agave so I couldn't do that. I thought about maple syrup instead but decided to just use my regular sugar. I did add additional oil and sour cream. I read through the posts and decided on an amount based on what most were saying, a quarter cup of each. I baked it an additional 10 minutes or so as some indicated it would need and mine did, it was jiggly at the end of the recipe's stated bake time range. Are these modifications where I went wrong? It could be, but everyone who did this gave it 4 and 5 stars.  

My son took the first bite and said that the "cinnamon stuff" was good. Well, yeah...cinnamon stuff is always good. My first bite consisted mostly of cake. Um, not so good. It's so indescribable. There was no taste and again with the vanilla that it called for and again using Nielsen Massey and a little extra that I let splash over the measuring spoon like the yellow cake I had made. The texture seemed like it wanted to be normal. It almost was and then you realize it isn't the more you chew. You keep wanting it to be because as you are chewing this flavorless, spummy cake, you are looking at the piece of it on your plate and it's inconceivable as to how something that looks like "that" can possibly taste and feel like it does in your mouth.

I think the Bisquick I've been hoarding will be kept strictly for pancakes and garlic cheddar biscuits. This girl is done experimenting with things that I would have never used Bisquick for before I went gluten free. It's time to start using from scratch recipes for things like coffee cake. It's really not much more work in the end and I'm hopeful that it will taste better. I never really used Bisquick for too much before because the end product was never very pleasing to me so I'm not really sure why I was expecting something spectacular out of it gluten free.

Summer's End

Well, I made it through my first summer gluten free.  Also, blog free.  My intention, of course, was to blog more frequently but with all the summer goings on, it didn't happen since I'm not yet back in the habit of getting on here and getting it done.

Over the summer I started to do a little baking so I'm building my confidence with that.  It's been nothing complicated and a lot of it has started with a mix or pre blended flour but it's a start. Can I tell you I have 5 boxes of gluten free Bisquick in my house right now?  I'm kinda hoarding it because it helps me. This is not my preferred method of baking AT ALL but it fulfills my need to whip up some pancakes that taste like pancakes, especially when you use buttermilk in the recipe.  Currently, as I type this, I have the gluten free Bisquick coffee cake recipe in the oven with a bazillion tweaks that I mixed and matched off of the recipe reviews. We'll see what happens with that.  Some of the other things I've played with this summer are:

-The first thing I made with the gluten free Bisquick was their garlic cheddar biscuits. They turned out so nicely. A little tiny bit gritty but there was so much flavor otherwise, it was easy to overlook the small flaw in the texture. 

 -I bought Pamela's Bread Mix and made a loaf of bread. It turned out pretty decently. I think it needs something though...can't quite put my finger on what bothered me about it after eating a couple slices of it.  I love Pamela's website. The recipes are broken down by flour blend/mix and you can make a lot of things with each type they make. I'm looking forward to playing with this blend/mix more. 

  

-I love King Arthur's brownie mix.  A lot.  Enough said.

-I made a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix.  It was very dry.  It was flavorless...even though it was a yellow cake mix and you still had to add your own vanilla to it.  I use Nielsen Massey vanilla so it's real vanilla and it's good quality and I always splash a bit extra over the measuring spoon and it still had no flavor. (That's a lot of and's)

-I made biscuits using the Bakewell Cream biscuit recipe with Trader Joe's all-purpose gluten free flour. This definitely needs some work but it was edible. As I'm learning, gluten free baked goods tend to be very dry. Lots of oil and eggs seem to be used to help counter this. I'd like to play more with this because I love the Bakewell Cream recipe for biscuits.

-I did also make a recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring website at the beginning of the summer and had posted it here. I took it off when I noticed the font was screwed up.  I never got back to fixing it, I was having a lot of difficulty with it and was aggravated with the thought of doing it completely over. It was for a copycat of Against the Grain rolls.  They were pretty good and I've made them again since.  I will probably make them again. The only thing I don't like is the amount of fat in them but you can't have it all, right?!?

I managed to not gluten myself too much this summer. I did get sick a few times and I'm pretty sure I figured out the culprits each time. It's a hard thing because gluten hides in the trickiest of places. Restaurants are well meaning having gluten free items on their menus yet do not fully understand the major impact cross contamination can have on someone who has celiac disease.  Different varieties of the same food can have different gluten statuses. Do you know how confusing Milky Ways are?  Don't eat the original, but the the caramel and dark are okay. I can't figure out why but I sure learned there is a difference after I did some more thorough research AFTER eating the original. I thought I had it right BEFORE but it never hurts to double check again before you eat.  Lesson learned. 

I had an endoscopy in August to follow up the blood work which showed the antigens that indicated I have celiac. Seems at one time an endoscopy was the "gold standard" for celiac diagnosis but from what I've been reading, more doctors are not leaning towards that school of thought as much anymore.  My doctor was going back and forth on whether or not to do one, we did already have it scheduled before the blood results came in so she said we might as well go ahead. She was able to see "blunting" of the villi during the scope, indicating celiac damage.  She also found minor esophagitis. This was a surprise to me as I've never had a problem with heartburn. The biopsies she took did come back showing celiac so I guess that I am totally and completely official. Gold standard and all. 

I successfully went on vacation. We had planned this trip prior to my diagnosis and to be honest with you, had I known I was going to have this, I probably would not have planned to go. I was so worried I would not find anything I could eat for a reasonable price. I'm super picky too, on top of everything. A lot of challenges. I brought tons of gluten free bars with me and had a few on me at all times but only found a few instances in which I had to use them instead of a meal. I ate a lot of baked potatoes at Wendy's during the week for quick lunches and I will forever be grateful that there was a Wendy's about a mile each way out of our hotel so no matter which direction we headed out, we were not far from one. (We went to Vegas and stayed on the strip) I found a lot of the staff were super helpful at the places that were not Wendy's.  I don't think I got sick.  I know, how could I not know.  Well, there is a thing called TMI so I will keep it to myself but what did happen, I don't think could really be attributed to what I ate since it was early in the trip and before too much restaurant food that could be suspect.  This trip really boosted my confidence with eating out. It did require a lot of planning and also, a lot of patience from my family but we made it happen without too much inconvenience. I had pizza, pasta, burgers, fries and a lot of baked potatoes...one every day!

That's a quick summary of my summer. I won't promise too much here as to when I'll blog again but do know that my intention is that there will be less time in between blogs this time around. Fall is here and the baking bug has bit me but so has the "I need to lose some weight" bug.  Perfect timing. I'll see what I can come up with for the next blog, somehow these two worlds have to collide!