It doesn’t get much closer to homemade taste with these Gluten Free Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies. They’re soft and chewy in the center with a slightly crisp and golden outer shell.
You know how there are certain things that your parents made you do over and over and over again as a kid? To the point that you never ever want to do that certain thing ever again as long as you live?
Take, for example, Saturday chores. I HATED Saturdays chores. I wasn’t allowed to participate in any kind of fun activity until my Saturday chores were completed. Some of them weren’t that bad like sweeping the downstairs floor, cleaning my bathroom, or organizing my room.
However, the fact that I had to clean my brothers’ bathroom floors (I had THREE brothers all sharing this bathroom) was berating, humiliating, and downright disgusting. And every time I complained about having to clean their dirty floors, which we can all only imagine what is lurking around on the floor surrounding the toilet, my dad would reply with a very stern, “We’re a family and we all help out. Your brother vacuums your room, so you can clean his bathroom floor.”
But for some reason, even when I begged to vacuum my own bedroom floor, I was still stuck with wiping up the boys’ bathroom. To this day, I despise cleaning toilets. For the most part, that’s Ben’s job. I’ll clean any and everything else!
Now I’ll admit, my parents’ constant concern for a clean house did have its payoffs eventually. When I first moved out of the house to go to college, my dorm room only stayed clean because I was roommates with a neat freak friend of mine. Bless her soul for keeping me organized!
But, as soon as Ben and I got married, all tidiness went to pot. I even had a room of our apartment dedicated to “crap”. I don’t think I hung up one article of clothing in the first five years of marriage. We basically lived in a pigpen, and poor Ben just put up with me while passively hinting at ways I could clean up my junk.
All I can say is hallelujah for maturity that coincides with aging. After doing some soul searching and growing up, I’ve become quite the OCD neat freak that never ceases to make my parents proud. I can say with confidence that I am probably the most organized of all my siblings. Who would have thought it???
Now, not all memories of my childhood were traumatic like scrubbing bathroom floors. There were other weekly traditions we had that were much more pleasant, one being our Sunday baking day. Almost every Sunday we would choose something to bake with my mom. Although my memories associated with this weekly activity were very fond, baking with my own kids now, I can only imagine how we must have driven my mother crazy these days.
But thanks to her very patient perseverance in the kitchen, my brother and I evolved into quite the bakers. In fact, my brother now teaches his young girls how to bake my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies, a scenario that Braelyn finds quite hilarious and confusing. “You mean uncle Taylor, a BOY, can bake?! My daddy can’t do that!” Yes, Braelyn, that is true.
And now I take pleasure in teaching my own children how to maneuver their way around the kitchen. And if it were up to me, we would make these Gluten Free Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies together every week until the day they moved out of the house.
Just like my childhood, I’m hoping that the memories of baking cookies with mom will permanently erase, or at least significantly diminish, the many other unfair and horrific memories of their childhood. Fingers crossed because I’m pretty sure I’ve scarred my children for life, even at their young age.
The homemade chocolate chips cookies are everything you want and expect out of a perfect chocolate chip cookie. They are soft with a slightly under baked texture on the inside with a crispy buttery outer shell. They’re not too thin and crispy, yet not too thick and puffy. They are just the perfect hybrid to please both preferences.
There is only one, and I mean ONLY one, downside to baking these cookies. You have to wait overnight for the dough to chill. Now, you don’t have to. In fact, you can do whatever you want, but to achieve the perfect cookie, you must let the dough chill. The texture, thickness, and look of the cookie is all that more appealing if you give the dough time to chill. If not, your cookies will spread more, be slightly flatter, and not have those enticing crinkles on the top that every homemade cookie should have.
I’m telling you, these cookies are meant to be made, eaten, and creating lasting memories. You won’t be soon forgotten if you disperse a batch of these bad boys, especially among your gluten free friends. Load these up with a variety of sweet mix-ins, and you’re all set to have everyone’s favorite cookie on hand.
So get started with making some memories!
- ¼ cup shortening
- ¼ cup butter, room temperature
- ½ cup organic cane sugar
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 large egg
- 1 ounce cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup fine white rice flour
- ½ cup brown rice flour
- ⅓ cup sweet sorghum flour
- ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon potato starch
- 3 tablespoons tapioca starch
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- dash of cinnamon
- ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- ½ cup milk chocolate chips
- In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream together shortening, butter, and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, egg, and cream cheese and mix on low until combined.
- In a separate smaller mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add mixture to butter mixture and beat until well combined and dough pulls away from sides of the bowl. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Cover dough tightly with plastic wrap and chill in fridge overnight or up to 5 days.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough into hands, shape into a ball, and place balls 2" apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes until edges and tops are golden brown.
- Remove pan from oven and slide parchment paper with cookies onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before removing from parchment paper. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, in fridge for up to 5 days and in freezer for up to 3 months.
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