Recipe by Alice Medrich
Like the best home-made chocolate chip cookies, these have delicately crispy edges and softer, slightly chewy centers. They are also gluten-free and plant based.
If you are a curious baker—here’s how a traditional recipe with eggs and butter and wheat flour became a delicious gluten-free and plant-based recipe using Renewal Mill Upcycled 1 to 1 Baking Flour. Starting with a chocolate chip cookie recipe from my book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies (Artisan Books: 2010), I substituted Renewal Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour, by weight, using 85% of the weight of the all-purpose flour called for—this is equivalent to, but more accurate than, swapping 1 cup for each cup of all-purpose called for in the original recipe.
Then I traded butter for oil, decreasing the amount slightly to account for the water content of the butter. I used 3 tablespoons of aqua faba instead of a whole egg. (I also had a great result using a flax egg instead of the aqua faba.)
Absent the taste of butter, I pumped up the vanilla and salt a tad and increased ratio of brown sugar to white sugar for added flavor. Finally, I reduced the baking temperature—because cookies made with gluten-free flours are often better when baked a bit longer at lower temperatures.
Fortunately, you don’t have to know any of the above, because you have the final recipe below!
But you might want just one pro tip: If you have a scale, turn the dial to grams and weigh your ingredients instead of measuring with cups— this will provide the easiest baking experience ever and the best possible results!
Even Better Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 20 cookies.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons (123g) Renewal Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour
- 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ t fine sea salt.
- 1/3 cup plus 1 Tablespoon (85g) neutral tasting oil (we like grapeseed or sunflower oil)
- ¼ cup (50g) organic sugar
- 1/3 cup plus 2 T (90g) packed organic brown sugar
- 3 T aqua faba or 1 flax egg (1 T golden* or regular flax meal stirred into 3T hot water and allowed to thicken for 5 minutes)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- Pinches of flakey salt for topping, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350F (non-convection) with a rack in lower and upper third.
In a small bowl, whisk to blend the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk the oil, white and brown sugars, aqua faba (or flax egg) and vanilla until the mixture looks thick and syrupy.
Stir in the flour mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Scoop heaping teaspoons of batter 2 inches apart on lightly greased or parchment lined pans. Top each with a tiny pinch of flakey salt, if desired. Bake until cookies are golden brown, 15-20 minutes , rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time. For cookies baked directly on the pan, use a thin metal spatula to transfer them to a rack to cool. If using parchment liners, simply set the pans on racks to cool.
*We prefer golden or toasted golden flax meal for it’s more delicate flavor and light color.