Foodie, Formerly Fat

I wasn’t honestly sure how the holiday baking season was going to turn out in our house after the removal of wheat flour and gluten from my pantry. I confess to have been feeling a bit daunted by baking in general. But then I found a great recipe on Gluten Free Girl and the Chef for her adaptation of David Leite’s 36 Hour Chocolate Chip Cookie. Wow. Even the doubting Thomas in my house had to admit it tasted like a damn good cookie. Period. No qualifier.

In my newness to gluten free baking I decided that tasting good trumped originality and so I unabashedly swiped the recipe for the cookie base from Shauna. For that recipe I am grateful.

I tend to be one of those who says things like, “Oh, please, I don’t need to chill these for 36 hours before baking them”. But I did what I was told here and while I can’t claim to know what the cookies would have tasted like if I’d baked them off after only an hour, they are good enough that I don’t see any need to mess with that instruction. And for me, that’s saying a lot.

The instruction I did mess with was simply that I like to shape the cookies before chilling rather than after because I find the dough much easier to work with when it’s soft. They still get the benefit of resting and chilling in the fridge but I save myself the frustration (and broken cookie scoop) of wrestling with the dough once that butter has gotten cold.

By the way, somehow this recipe claims to make 12-24 cookies. Holy cow, those must have been gigantic cookies. I mean, she says they are large, but I didn’t really realize just how big they must have been until after I made my own batch. I use a small cookie scoop and I got over 90 cookies scooped. Yes, I said 90. The size differential changes the baking time by a lot so it’s important to adjust the time based on the size cookie you scoop. Now, get cracking, you’ll want to have these tomorrow night!