Delicious Gluten and dairy free Cookies

I learnt how to make these at the Cookability cookery course in London and fell in love. I’d never made cookies before this so it was a whole new experience for me. These cookies are made using hardly any flour, just a bit of rice flour, no egg, no dairy, no nuts and no gluten. They’re pretty amazing and absolutely delicious.

What you’ll need:

125g margerine (dairy free if required)
140g sugar
1 egg or egg replacer (1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed soaked in 3 tablespoons of water till thick)
100g ground sunflower seeds (I used a mixture of sunflower and pumpkin seeds)
50g ground linseeds
50g rice flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinammon (I used mesquite flour)
175g chocolate chips (Plamil do dairy free chocolate chips)
Parchment paper

How to make them

1. Line two baking trays with baking parchment. Trust me on this, just greasing the tray or using normal greaseproof paper will not cut it. The biscuits will be nice but they’ll be a devil to get off the tray/paper. Parchment paper is kind of waxed so the biccies just slide off.
2. Mix ground flaxseed with the water and let it absorb. The longer you can leave this the better. It needs to get to a gloopy eggy consistency. Preferably 15-20 minutes
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the margerine with the sugar until pale and creamy
4. Add the flaxseed mix to the bowl and beat well
5. Add the sunflower seeds, linseeds, rice flour, baking powder and cinammon to the bowl and mix to combine.
6. Add the chocolate chips and mix again
7. Put heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the baking trays. Leave space for the cookies to sink and spread
8. Bake in the oven at 190c for approximately 10-15 minutes
9. Leave to cool on a serving rack
10. Enjoy!

I do have some tips for any of who fancies making these. We made some smaller and tried cooking for less time but these burnt a bit. It seemed that the larger the dollop of cookie mixture, the better the cookie. The ones my husband made (rather annoyingly) were by far the best. He took ages sculpting his into perfect round, quite chubby little spoonfuls of mixture; he took time to shape them and pat them down and moulded them into a nice shape. Mine were just dollops and so not quite so attractive!

Do make sure you leave enough space for the cookies to spread too as they do sink and widen in the oven. Depending on your oven keep an eye on them. Some only took 8 minutes to cook and they very quickly turn from cookies (just the right consistency to be soft and chewy) into biscuits (more crunchy and brittle). We only had a small oven and one baking tray so we cooked lots of batches.

So how to describe the taste? These cookies are almost too good. They call to you from the biscuit tin, and I guarantee you won’t be able to have just one with your cup of tea or coffee. The chocolate chips are just meltingly delicious inside the cookies and the mixture of the different seeds gives it a really nutty bite (but without the nuts of course) and a great texture. The natural flax seed egg replacer works really well and they don’t crumble at all. I will definitely be making these again. Second time was better, my third time (next time) will be perfect!

To find out more about the Cookability allergy free cookery courses and find more allergy free recipes visit their website at www.cookability.com.

So are you tempted? I’d love to hear from anyone else who has cooked these. How were they? Would you cook them again? I always think that’s the ultimate test of any recipe.

You may also be interested in:

• Amazing gluten and dairy free blinis
• Top Free From chocolates and biscuits
• Gluten, dairy and nut free no bake flapjacks