Recipe #5 (out of order, yes, I know) - Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip

Intro

My brother challenged me to bake my way through the New York Times Top 11 Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes, mostly so maybe I would send him some to “taste-test.”

And why not?

I printed all the recipes, scanned the ingredients and spent about $60 on the stuff I did not have, like cake flour and coconut sugar - not including the cookie scoop that I have always wanted and finally bought. I did not buy any super special ingredients. No chocolate feves, no Maldon salt.

The Recipe

“Where’s recipe #4???” You may be asking. Well, we had a bunch of friends over - yes, all at once, an in-person party! - and we have a few gluten-free folks in the group. So I skipped to Recipe #5, a gluten-free version that called for almond flour. Which is stupid expensive, by the way. This recipe will use most of a 1 lb bag.

This is one of those rare instances when the baked cookie was significantly better than the raw dough. Almond flour is…not really flour, and the dough has the gritty texture of finely chopped nuts. I mean, I ate it anyway, you know - for science. I did refrigerate the dough overnight. I used my cookie scoop and did not flatten them - I can see that being necessary with the larger cookie in the recipe though.

These cookies turned out great. While the cookie had a different texture - I would say it was chewy going on almost tough - it lost the gritty texture of the dough. I used 70% chocolate chunks (10 oz bag, Kroger Private Selection, which seems to be doing yeoman’s work here, subbing for higher-end specialty chocolate).

For this gathering, I also made Recipe #1, the current leader in the chocolate chip cookie sweepstakes. Both cookies got rave reviews, but everyone -was very surprised at just how good the gluten-free one was.

The Reviews

Me: Surprisingly great. Only complaint is texture is almost too chewy. And salt seems to be a prevailing theme in these recipes - to lots of positive comments.

Party group: Really good! Would not have guessed gluten-free, although the texture is different.

Gluten-free guest: <eats three>

Other comments: “really like the chocolate chunks” “love the bittersweet chocolate” “nice almondy flavor” “love the salt, in the dough and on top, perfect amount”