Gluten-Free Chocolatey Nutty Oats Cookies

Reggie loves to go hiking, so I wanted to make trail food that is both tasty and hardy enough to survive the trip to Pico de Loro. Most cookies will have flour in them as a binder, but I wanted to try to make a version that is completely without flour.

To make this recipe vegan, you can replace the egg with egg substitute, but I’m not sure if it will still taste as yummy. Eggs do so many things in baking that it’s difficult to find a perfect egg substitute that is consistent across all baking recipes.

If you want to make these cookies dairy-free, remove the chocolate bar and replace with your dried fruit, such as raisins, or dates.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (85 grams) rolled oats

• 1 cup (100 grams) oatmeal flour

• 1 cup unsalted cashews, peanuts, or almonds, weight changes, depending on the nuts used

• 1 cup nut flour, weight changes, depending on the nuts used

• 1 bar (100 grams) semi-sweet or dark chocolate

• ¼ cup (22 grams) unsweetened powdered cocoa

• ¼ cup (55 grams) brown sugar, packed

• 1 teaspoon fine salt

• ½ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon baking powder

• ¼ cup cooking oil or virgin coconut oil

• ¼ cup hazelnut spread or peanut butter

• ¼ cup honey or other liquid sweetener such as light molasses, maple syrup

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 whole egg

Procedure:

How to Make Oatmeal Flour

Place rolled oats or oatmeal in a blender or food processor. Blend until fine. Oats are technically gluten-free. However, many producers use the same fields, equipment, and storage facilities for oats as they do for wheat. The use of the same equipment means there will be some cross-contamination. Read the label on the oats you use to make sure it is gluten-free.

How to Make Nut Flour

Place nuts in a blender or food processor. Blend until fine. Be careful when using peanuts to make nut flour. Blending peanuts quickly releases their oils and it becomes peanut butter when over-enthusiastically ground in a blender. Use a food processor on a pulse setting to better control the grinding. If you ground your peanuts into peanut butter by accident, just add them into the mix anyway, but add them to the oil instead of the other dry ingredients.

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF or 200ºC.
2. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with baking paper. If no baking paper is available, lightly grease the sheets with shortening.
3. Roughly chop the chocolate bar. Set aside.
4. Roughly chop the nuts.
5. In a large mixing bowl, add rolled oats, oatmeal flour, nuts, nut flour, powdered cocoa, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix together until well-blended.
6. In a separate bowl, mix together oil, hazelnut spread, honey, vanilla extract, and egg.
7. Pour oil mixture over mixed dry ingredients.
8. Mix together until well blended. You can use a mixer or a spatula to blend it together.
9. Add chopped chocolate bar, if used, and mix with a spatula until well blended. This prevents the chocolate from breaking into smaller pieces.
10. Using a 1.5 diameter ice cream scooper or a spoon, measure out the dough onto the cookie sheet. There should be about 2”-3” space in-between each cookie to allow for spreading. Using a spoon, slightly flatten the cookie so it spread evenly.
11. Bake in oven for 13-18 minutes, or until lightly toasted on the edges. If you prefer your cookies to be on the chewy side, use 13-15 minutes baking time.
12. Transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to fully cool as these cookies are crumbly when warm.
13. When fully cooled, transfer to an airtight container.

Photos by Louise Hagedorn