Gluten Free?

Yesterday's baking was for BakingGALS. A group that I just joined. I will do a final post later when I get the projects packaged up for sending. Basically I have joined two teams this month. Each team has a different soldier assignment so now I have a way to send baked goods!

I am very new to BakingGALS but really enjoying the experience so far.

Goals: items that will survive shipping, be enjoyable to all diets, but at the same time experiment a little for an upcoming local bake sale.

There is such a demand for gluten free in this area. Now I am not a gluten free kitchen so for some allergies, despite cooking gluten free first, I will not be able to accommodate. Basically, I wanted to play with recipes!

Recipes for this experiment:
Soft Chocolate-Chip Macadamia Cookies (second recipe this week banished to my growing list of desserts to only make when I am ready for massive consumption...they are unbelievably addictive)
Flourless Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies
Flourless Chocolate-Chip Cookies (Personal staple)

First I mixed up a double batch of those Chocolate-Chip Macadamia cookies and quickly hid the dough in the back of my fridge for chilling.

Then I moved onto the flourless "experiment." This is my problem: when I buy oat flour I specifically buy gluten free, so we are covered there however for oatmeal I buy Quaker. Basically it is one of the cheaper options out there especially if I go to Costco. However, they can't certify their kitchen gluten free because of all the grains that go through processing with them. And gluten free oats are expensive.

So first I tried the flourless oatmeal raisin substituting a little less than 3/4 oat flour for the rolled oats. They were fine, but I didn't love them. Photo above.

I am scrapping the oat flour option. And I returned to what I knew works.

This is a bowl of the flourless chocolate chip made with ground rolled oats. I also substitute peanut butter for the oil. These are one of my favorite cookies and I don't go crazy when I make them. :)

This is a flourless oatmeal raisin next to my oat flour attempt for comparison. When I make the flourless oatmeal raisin I do add cinnamon.

With the flourless batches done...double on both. I went on to bake the chocolate-chip macadamia which should come with a warning when suddenly it hit me...I will just use this recipe and turn it into raisin. Problem solved.

I now officially have 3, all gluten free ingredients recipes planned for my local bake sale. Baked in a non-gluten free kitchen! :) We will talk about the third later...also banished to my list. It has been a rough week.

Then I made myself some more mint chocolate chip ice cream for cookie eating later.

And moved on to the staples: chocolate chip (tollhouse recipe)...

...and oatmeal (batch with cinnamon-raisin, and batch without). This recipe comes from the Quaker oatmeal container. I strongly prefer quick oats for these cookies, but Costco sells rolled oats and the deal is just too good. They are still a very good cookie. :)

In non-baking related news: the Quilt Festival is over and I didn't win. :) HOWEVER, I already met some great people and great sites so no complaints.

Favorite line from her post: "...and get yourself a prize if you didn’t win." Needless to say I have been on vendor sites most of the morning!