Healthy Snackables: Gluten Free Cookies

Italian kids are tested at age six for sensitivity to gluten, and 12% of them are reported to test as positive. I wonder if the percentage is any different in the USA, and right here on Vashon Island. Wheat is the worst offender. Most of my descendants, like me, are much healthier avoiding wheat and avoiding or minimizing consumption of other foods with gluten in them. Diabetics and those allergic or sensitive to sugar cane need to avoid or minimize sugar consumption, too.

The cookies below are not super-sweet, just sweet enough to be recognized as cookies, not biscuits. Coconut sugar is lower on the glycemic index than cane sugar, therefore raises blood sugar less. Besides coconut sugar is lower on the glycemic index than cane sugar.

The little bit of barley flour in my Oatmeal Cookies contains only a smidgen of gluten, and to avoid gluten altogether you can replace it in the recipe with sorghum flour. Both Thriftway and the Minglement have all the flours mentioned in this recipe. These cookies make handy, healthy snackables and survival food. Kids of any age love them. Make some the next cool day.

Very low gluten, lactose free

OATMEAL COOKIES

Makes 3 1/2 dozen

1 cube butter

½ to 1 cup coconut sugar or brown Splenda®

2 eggs beaten with

1/4 cup water

1 cup sorghum flour

½ cup teff flour

½ cup barley flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup raisins

2 cups rolled oats

In a large mixing bowl, melt the butter. It melts faster if you cut it in 8 to 10 slices.

Stir in the sugar. Stir in the eggs and the vanilla. Sift and stir in ½ of the dry ingredients in. Stir in the raisins and walnuts. Sift and stir in the remaining dry ingredients Stir in the rolled oats.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

While the oven heats, line two baking sheets and a pie pan with aluminum foil. Using two spoons, drop roughly round cookie dough balls onto the foil about 1 inch apart. You can roll the dough spoonfuls between your hands to make nice, regular rounded cookies if that is your will. When time is short, though, it’s okay to make cookies no two of which are exactly the same shape.

Bake 15 minutes. Stick a toothpick into the tallest cookies. If it comes out clean, all the cookies are done. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and let the cookies sit a minute to get used to the cooler temperature. Then slide them from the foil onto racks to cool.

You will have no baking sheets to wash, and these cookies leave the foil clean. Smooth it, fold it, and stick it behind your cookie jar to recycle into a base for your next batch of oatmeal cookies.

For more wholegrain, gluten free recipes see my little book Bake Gluten Free. It’s available at the Minglement and at the Country Store. Minglement displays it with the gluten free flours on the upper level.

All my profits on Bake Gluten Free go to help support the Vashon Food Bank.

Bon appetite, and good health to you all.