Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups, your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery sales and affordable ingredients! This week we’re actually testing out an everyday priced product: The 5 lb Namaste gluten free flour blend I picked up at the end of August at Costco, stuck in the cupboard, and forgot about until this weekend.

Namaste Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend ran me $8.99 for 5 lbs at Costco, which isn’t terrible as gluten free flours go — but it’s much more expensive everywhere else I’ve checked, even on Amazon.

Namaste Perfect Flour Blend has Xanthan gum included and is supposed to measure cup for cup like regular wheat flour in recipes. It’s also top eight allergen free.

No, Namaste isn’t sponsoring this post 🙂 — Just info for those of you shopping and baking around food allergies!

Ignore my messy Halloween paper-sorting counter, please!

So anyway… Junior High Guy decided this year that he’s too old to dress up and go trick-or-treating on Halloween. (Sniff… it’s the end of an era.) This is probably true, lol, but I think his decision was also influenced by the fact that a wheat-and-dairy allergy prevents him from enjoying most of the best candy. Instead, he and I cooked up a batch of gluten free dairy free chocolate chip cookies, all warm and snug in our cozy kitchen while MashupDad and Mr. 7 braved the crazy weather outside.

Nestle Toll House cookies are the first thing I ever learned to make, and I baked endless batches of them as a teen. Toll House cookies were also the source of my first major kitchen mishap: My Mom one day decided to move her baking supplies into unmarked plastic storage containers, and I mistook the powdered sugar for flour. When I couldn’t understand why the first sheet of cookies came out super spread out and sweet, I decided to add more “flour” to thicken them up. And I kept adding… and adding… and… well… you can guess how that sad tale ended!

Given our long and only slightly sordid history, Nestle Toll House cookies seemed like a good choice for a first gluten free dairy free baking experiment with this new flour. So, here goes with our modified for food allergies recipe. For our first experiment here, I just made one-to-one substitutions and substituted Namaste Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend for regular wheat flour, substituted Earth Balance for butter, and substituted dairy free chocolate chips for Toll House (technically, the bag is also 2 oz smaller).

Not Toll House Gluten Free Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups Namaste gluten free perfect flour blend
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup Earth Balance buttery spread, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
10 oz package Enjoy Life dairy free semi sweet mini chocolate chips

Directions

In large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and salt. In separate large bowl, mix all other ingredients except chocolate chips. Gradually add flour mixture to wet ingredients, mixing well, until well blended. Mix in chocolate chips. If you’re used to cooking with wheat flour, note that your dough will be, for lack of a better word, goopier than you might be used to.

Drop spoonfuls of batter onto greased cookie sheet* and cook 9-11 minutes at 375 degrees or until bottoms are browned, rotating cookie sheets halfway through.

*Why greased? The original Toll House recipe called for ungreased cookie sheets, which I faithfully followed in our experiment here. Oddly, one cookie sheet came out fine and the cookies slid off nicely, but I’m still chiseling perma-fused cookie remnants off the other. Next time I’m spraying these with cooking spray!

Let cookies cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes, then remove to rack to cool the rest of the way.

Survey says?

Not bad! As is usual with gluten free flours, the texture was slightly grainier than the original — but the cookies stayed nice and soft rather than flat and dense, and didn’t crumble everywhere like some of the alternatives we have tried.

The Earth Balance flavor, however, was a little much, and I think I’d mess with that next time — will probably try using gluten free shortening instead. Junior High Guy thought these were the bee’s knees and inhaled three in a row in lieu of Halloween candy, which seems only fair. We’ll definitely be trying out other recipes with this flour, and the cup-for-cup thing is great for baby stepping into the complicated world of gluten free baking.

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5 from 1 vote

Not Toll House Gluten Free Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Use Namaste gluten free flour to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

Course Dessert

Total Time 35

Servings cookies

Author Rachel Singer

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups Namaste gluten free perfect flour blend
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup Earth Balance buttery spread softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
10 oz package Enjoy Life dairy free semi sweet mini chocolate chips

Instructions

In large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and salt.
In separate large bowl, mix all other ingredients except chocolate chips.
Gradually add flour mixture to wet ingredients, mixing well, until well blended.
Mix in chocolate chips.
Drop spoonfuls of batter onto greased cookie sheet and cook 9-11 minutes at 375 degrees or until bottoms are browned, rotating cookie sheets halfway through.
Let cookies cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes, then remove to rack to cool the rest of the way.

Alex.

Thursday 18th of April 2019

I used smart balance because that is what I had and turned half-way through (and coated pan). They come out great at 9 minutes! My daughter with the sensitivity was so happy!! We refrigerated some and they needed a few more minutes, coming out a little thicker and chewier (vice thin and crispy on the edges). We liked both ways. I froze some, hoping this is a viable option since there are only two of us. Thank you for the recipe.

Tuesday 29th of May 2018

These were a major hit! Everyone was shocked they were gluten free. Everyone said they were better than non-gluten cookies. I had to hide them from the teenagers so, I got some for the next day.

Outlander

Sunday 2nd of November 2014

Rachel, next time make sure to use either parchment paper or your silicone mats. I always do that, and if you use parchment, you can also reuse it many times, just wipe it.

Jane

Did you bake both sheets on 2 different racks in your oven at the same time? Also, is your oven gas or electric? I was a master in our old house with a gas oven and now I have electric and had to learn how to cook all over again! I burn (or boil over) everything here. I would check the temp. of your oven and if it runs hot, turn down the oven to 350 next time. Try only baking one batch at a time on the middle to top rack only. Even though you rotate the pans, they still will not cook as evenly as the single pans do. That's the beauty of the convection ovens....I dream of one for my next range!

Also, have you baked with that Bobs Red Mill rice flour you got from Target yet? I found 2 bags on clearance at Kroger last week net 19c after coupon! I was wondering if you could blend some of that with some oat flour or the one you used here to make a good substitution for wheat? I have yet to open and experiment with mine.

rachel

I did (and switched racks in the middle) in a gas oven -- but I always do and never had that happen before! Good idea though.

I haven't tried the white rice flour yet, but have been making brown rice flour pancakes: http://www.sundayscratchups.com/brown-rice-flour-pancakes-gluten-free-dairy-free/

Losing Lindy

I bet the ones that stuck were from dark colored sheet, do you have an old aluminum one? Or do you remember those air bake ones?

One is slightly lighter than the other, but not enough of a difference that it should have stuck as badly as it did? It's hard to tell from the photo but you can see them next to each other there.