Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with Coconut

Gluten Free - Cherry Chocolate
Oatmeal Cookies

I'm continually on a quest for great gluten free cookies. Real Simple has a great peanut butter cookie recipe (they are even better if you add chopped Skor bar). I made Carmelitas a couple weeks ago with GF-flour and those were good too.

This weekend, I was craving a chewy oatmeal cookie so I made up a recipe that turned out to be pretty damn good. In fact, I took them to a Super Bowl party and didn't tell anyone that they were gluten free. I think it's a good sign when the cookies disappear.

1 cup melted butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 tablespoon black tea (coffee would work too)
2 eggs

1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour mix
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2  teaspoon salt (next time I'm going to use kosher)
1/2  teaspoon cinnamon

Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies -
Amazing when they are warm!

1 1/2 cup oats (I used gluten free, but you could use regular. I would stick to something like Coach's Oats where it's a little more finely ground.)
1 cup coconut
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup chocolate chips

Mix the butter, brown sugar and tea. Add the eggs and mix it for a minute or two. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix well. Add the oats, coconut, cherries and chocolate chips. Mix. I used a regular table spoon to "drop" them on the cookie sheet. I was in a rush and made the last tray a little big. With the big tray, I still got 48 cookies out of it so I'm sure I could have gotten 60 out of the batch normally.

Bake 12 minutes at 350.

A note about the coconut: I think it really helped the consistency of the cookie. It made them nice and chewy. But, I didn't get a lot of coconut flavor, which I was hoping for. Next time, I might use additional coconut and  roll the dough in it before baking. Hubby also suggested trying coconut oil instead of butter; I think a 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of coconut oil would be ok. So, if you're looking for a big coconut flavor try that.

Flour Power

In my last post, Pinterest Tested, Husband Approved, I mentioned that I modified a couple of recipes by using gluten-free flour. Well, I figured I should share my flour "recipe" if I was going to keep referring to it. I've modified a recipe from, Gluten-Free Baking Classics. This book is a must-have for anyone that is trying to bake in a gluten-free world.

Most of Roberts' recipes us a brown rice flour mix:
2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca flour

I mix up a big batch and store it in an air-tight container. Then I don't have to pull all three ingredients out every time I need "flour."

I noticed that in a lot of her recipes and other gluten-free recipes, they also call for xanthan gum. It helps keep everything together. I've started just mixing some into my flour mix. For the batch described above, I add about 2 1/2 teaspoons of xanthan to the mix. You should know, I'm not a precision baker so this method works out ok for me. If you like to be precise, you should probably follow the recipe.

Pinterest Inspired Husband Tested

I'm addicted to Pintrest.

The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. I'm just not sure I want to recover from this problem.

For the last three or four months, I've spent a few hours a week combing through Pinterest to find ideas for new recipes, 101 ways to use shutters, 50,000 ideas for a photo wall and some great fashion concepts. Two weeks ago, I realized that it's pretty stupid to spend all of that time 'pinning' if I'm not actually going to do any of it. So, I started cooking and the results are below. I should also note that some of these came from my favorite blogs but I had pinned the recipes so that I could find them later.

Pear Cranberry Gingersnap Crumble: I had such high hope for this recipe. Unfortunately, I wasn't very impressed. It was very tart and not one I'd make again.

Granola Bars:  These turned out to be a crumbly mess. There was no way these were going to form into a bar and stay that way. I mixed in coconut, cherries and chocolate chips. I makes great topping for yogurt.

Crock-pot Chicken Enchilada Soup: This dish is AMAZING. I've made it twice. If I could get away with it, I would make it weekly, but we aren't that type of household. I used extra chipotle because we like heat. For toppings we included sour cream, cheese, cilantro, green onion and avocado. We made it for company both times; the people who don't like spice just added extra sour cream and cheese. It was delish. 

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins: These were a disaster. I baked them twice as long as recommended and yet they were wet, sticky and mushy. I threw out the entire batch. Skip this one.

Chicken Stew with Butternut Squash and Quinoa: I love butternut squash and I love quinoa, so this was an easy choice. Again, we made it for company (kind of risky for the first time). It was amazing and everyone had seconds. I doubled the batch and froze some. Hopefully, it's as good on round two as it was on round one. 

Lettuce Wraps: I made this with ground turkey instead of beef and added bean sprouts to give it a little more texture and sneak in a little more veggies. It was amazing. I used a little more turkey than it called for, which was great on a salad the next day. I served a Thai cucumber salad with it (it's super easy to make too). It only took me about 30 minutes to make the entire meal and it was all stuff that I already had. Great weekday dinner.

Pad Thai: I'm not really sure if I should count this one. I used the recipe as a guide but sort of went off on my own. It's ok though - it turned out awesome. I combined carrots, celery, bok choy, cilantro, bean sprouts, tofu and shrimp. It was fab. 

Carmelitas: Amazing. I used gluten-free flour mix and it turned out great. Next time I'm going to add pecans and coconut. Warning: you'll want to eat the whole pan.

Follow my Pintrest Food Board for recipe ideas.