On Monday night I was really feeling like baking, because I’ve done a whole two weeks without baking and I was having serious withdrawals. So I decided that a baking session was seriously in order, but what to bake? I mean, there are so many seriously delicious treats to bake, and so little time to bake them all. There are almost too many options when it comes to baking, and I almost need to narrow it down by what I feel like making, how much time I have and of course what is on hand. And when I went to my pantry I noticed that I was seriously lacking what you would normally need as staples for baking i.e. flour, caster sugar, cooking chocolate.

Most people at this point would give up, as it was a Monday night and I could have put the TV on instead and forgotten about the whole thing. But not me, I was determined to bring baked goods into work to improve everyone’s Tuesday! So instead I rallied and figured out how I could get creative with my baking! And it ended up being a really fun, and delicious, experiment.

I decided on a recipe for cookies (because you know how much I love cookies) that were made using almond meal, because despite not having flour, for some reason I had a lot of almond meal. This was a positive as well as some of the girls in my office can’t eat gluten and so it meant they could enjoy the cookies too! I ended up finding a recipe for double chocolate cookies using almond meal which looked really delicious. And who doesn’t love chocolate? I feel like anything with just singular chocolate in it is good, let alone DOUBLE chocolate! And it was such a shame that all I had on hand was Lindt chocolate, because it made the cookies about one million times better!

I would have to say, these may be my favourite cookies that I’ve ever baked. Which is weird, because all things considered they aren’t that bad for you. The batter was a perfect Monday night treat, and the cookies themselves were so good I had to keep going back! I think if you are looking for a chocolatey, delicious cookie recipe, you should look no further than this recipe, it is seriously good!

Gluten Free Double Chocolate Cookies

Adapted From	Gourmande in the Kitchen
Preparation Time	15 minutes
Cooking Time	9 minutes
Serves	28 cookies
Ingredients ·         200 grams of bittersweet dark chocolate – I used Lindt 85% chocolate for melting, and 90% chocolate for the chocolate chips. You will be melting half and using the other half for the chocolate chips. Roughly chop half of the chocolate ·         1 ½ cups of almond meal ·         ½ cup of unsweetened cacao (or cocoa if you only have this on hand) ·         ½ teaspoon of baking soda ·         ½ teaspoon of sea salt, finely ground ·         112 grams of butter cut into cubes ·         1 cup of coconut sugar ·         2 large eggs ·         1 teaspoon of vanilla extract Method 1.       Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius (350 degrees F) 2.       Fill a saucepan with a bit of water over a medium heat, and place half the chocolate in a bowl. Place the bowl over the top of the water so it completely covers the saucepan. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring until completely liquid. Remove from heat. 3.       In a bowl, combine the almond meal, cacao, baking soda, salt and sugar, and use a hand held mixer to combine. 4.       Add the cubed butter to the mixture and process until it is completely brought together. The dough should look a bit wet and darker. 5.       Add the eggs, vanilla and melted chocolate and process until the dough is smooth. It will be quite wet but still firm enough to use a spoon to form balls. Fold in the chopped chocolate to the mixture. 6.       Line two baking trays with baking paper. Using two tablespoons, drop heaped balls of dough onto the baking sheets, keeping a few inches between each cookie. 7.       Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until just set (don’t overbake as they will firm up when you take them out of the oven) 8.       Cool completely on a wire rack, and enjoy!

This recipe was really simple and ended up having minimal washing up – you only need to use two bowls and your mixer! They also ended up being really healthy all things considered – dark chocolate is really good for you and they didn’t have any refined sugar or flour in them. The result was super chocolatey, gooey cookies with the most amazing texture! Everyone at work was commenting about how delicious these were, and I loved them because they weren’t overly sweet, they had just the perfect amount of sweetness that you didn’t feel really gross after eating one, or four.

As these are technically chocolate chip cookies, I am going to rate them on my chocolate chip cookie scale (If you have only just started reading, here is the original post explaining my hunt for the perfect cookie). Even though these are a little different to a classic chocolate chip cookie, I think they still have their place in the great cookie hunt!

Supreme Cookie Awesomeness Score

Simplicity: 7

Gooeyness: 7

Tastiness: 9

Gone Factor: 8

Total Score: 31/40

They scored a little lower than the last batch, just because the ingredients are a little harder to source, and it involved melting chocolate etc. Also, they lasted a whole two days, rather than the one day that the other cookies I tried lasted. But they were equally tasty and gooey, so overall a really good score!

These make for a great relatively healthy treat for everyone to enjoy! What delicious chocolate chip cookies. If this is what gluten free cookies taste like all the time, sign me up! I’m sure they don’t, but man I have started attempting gluten free cookies on a high note!  I don’t know if I can make any gluten free cookies that taste better than these, but I guess I am a little biased as I love dark chocolate so much! Does anyone have any cookie recipes they think could top these? I’d love to know!

Until Next Time, Happy Baking!

Ella xx