Are you sitting down?  Good, ok, here goes.  I have a confession to make : I’ve recently starting dabbling in gluten-free and dairy-free baking.  There, I’ve said it.  It’s out.  Go ahead, you can judge me now.  I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking I’m doing this to be “cool”, cause ya know, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, egg-free, vegan-baking is all the rage right now.  Well, you’re wrong.  I’m a lot of things, but I am not trendy (says the girl who started a cupcake bakery).

For years now I’ve been a firm believer that all these food sensitivities people claim to have are  just another example of how lame we are as a society.  Yet another example of the fact that those who live in developed counties don’t have to worry about, oh I don’t, SURVIVING anymore, so we starting coming up with other stuff to worry about, like, for instance, seasonal depression.

In the words of Chris Rock…

“You think anyone in Rwanda’s got a fucking lactose intolerance?”

Funny, all that changed a few months ago when I started experiencing some weird symptoms.  I won’t bore you with the details cause it’s sort of  a long story and this isn’t that kind of blog, but basically it boils down to this: I might have a food sensitivity.  Oh, excuse me while I take my foot out of my mouth (thankfully my sensitively isn’t to my feet cause they end up there quite often).

When the possibility of a food sensitivity was first suggested to me I, of course, balked.  “I don’t believe in food sensitivities” I said.  Since then I’ve done a lot of research in the area of food allergies, sensitivities and intolerance and, well, I gotta say, I’ve learned a lot, namely, that I’ve been kind of a jerk when it comes to this topic.

Turns out the reason that people who live in places like Rwanda don’t have food sensitivities is because they are probably still eating the way their ancestors did a thousand years ago.  In other words, the way humans evolved to eat.  Food sensitivities tend to be more prevalent in developed countries because, basically, we have the “luxury” of eating a bunch of crap that our bodies haven’t really had time to adapt to.  I could go on and on about this topic, but you and I both know that if you’re looking for scientific evidence or concrete data on just about anything, chances are you’re not looking for it at Naughty Little Cupcake.  So, I’m going to cease my rant and instead share this awesome cookie recipe I’ve stumbled upon.

They’re what I like to call The Big 3-Free Cookies, the big 3 being gluten, dairy and eggs.  Behold…

Below is all you’ll need to make these cookies.

Front row: walnuts, dates.  Back row: maple syrup, grapeseed oil, kosher salt, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon.

Ingredients -

• 2 cups walnuts or pecans
• 12-ish dates, pitted
• 2 tsp grapeseed oil
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt (I like to use kosher, not because I’m Jewish, but because the flaky consistency incorporates quickly)
• 4 to 5 tbs pure maple syrup (you worth it, don’t settle for maple flavored high fructose corn syrup)
• 1 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut (optional)

Directions -

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place walnuts and dates in a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground.  Pulse in oil, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.  Contiue to pulse until mixture begins to form a ball.

2. Remove mixture from food processor and tranfer to a large mixint bowl.  Add maple syrup and mix well.  Add coconut and mix until thoroughly blended.

3.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or if you don’t have any parchment just lightly grease your baking sheet with some of the grapeseed oil.  Scoop a little more than a tablespoon of the dough, roll it into a ball and place it on the baking sheet.  Make an indention in the ball with your thumb or fore finger.

4.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until slightly firm and brown on the bottom.  Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 15 minutes.

Note:  While it may be tempting, do not eat these cookies hot and fresh out of the oven.  They need some time to set up.  Be patient.  Take a walk around the block or YouTube some old Chris Rock stand-up while you wait.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that you won’t even notice that these cookies don’t have flour, dairy or eggs in them, because  it’s really quite obvious that they don’t, so you will.  What I will tell you is that you won’t care because they are very tasty little treats that can stand on their own without the “these-cookies-don’t-have-conventional-cookie-ingredients-in-them” introduction.  When you serve these cookies to guests, don’t feel compelled to mention that they don’t contain wheat, dairy or eggs; your guests will think you think they are stupid for stating what is so clearly apparent.

The only down side to these cookies is that they kind of look like miniature sausage patties.  Really.  I had some of these cookies in my pack recently when I was out for a day of back country skiing .  When my friend and I stopped for a snack I pulled them out and started munching away.  My friend suddenly stopped his munching, gave me a strange look and asked,  “Are you eating breakfast sausage?”

I tried taking A LOT of pictures of these cookies for this post and no matter what I did they still looked like sausage patties.  I’m sure a trained photographer could have made them look like cookies, but I’m a baker, not a photographer.  Here, see what I mean…

Jimmy Dean, eat your heart out!

This recipe was adapted from one that I found in the November issue of ‘Delicious Living’, you know, that free mag they give away at health food stores.

Pay attention, I’m about to to blow your mind.  I have in my possession quite possibly the world’s very best chocolate chip cookie recipe and I’m going to share it with you (insert pause for dramatic effect here).  I know what you’re thinking: “Yawn.  Chocolate chip cookies are so boring”, right?  WRONG!  If you think that, then you’ve clearly never met a chocolate chip cookie of this caliber and you’ll have to find it in your heart to forgive you mother for this crime at some point.  These cookies are good.  Really good.  These cookies are so good they can’t even be ranked on the Naughty Scale.  They are so far beyond naughty that naughty blushes when these cookies are in the room.

How do I know these cookies are that good?  Well, because every time I make them inevitably one of the recipients will find it necessary to trap me, for several minutes, in a totally one-sided conversation about how these are the very best chocolate chip cookies they have ever had.  I already know this, but I usually let them continuing speaking out of respect for the fact that it’s not everyday someone has the opportunity to see God in a chocolate chip cookie and I kinda feel like I need to honor that experience for them.  That’s how.

Ingredients–

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 large eggs
  
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole oats, blended into a semi-course flour in a blender.  Be sure to measure out the 2 1/2 cups BEFORE blending instead of after.  Very important.
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 4 oz dark chocolate bar, grated
• 1 1/2 cup chopped nuts of your choice (but really, why would you want to destroy good chocolate chip cookies by adding nuts?)

Directions–

Pre-heat over to 375 degrees.  Cream together butter, both sugars, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl.  Set aside.  Mix together flour, oat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just blended then add chocolate chips and grated dark chocolate (and the nuts if you’re just hell-bent on ruining this recipe).  Roll dough between your hands to form inch-ish sized balls, place on cookie sheet and bake for 9 minutes.  *Baking note:  you’re gonna pull these cookies out of the oven after 9 minutes and think they don’t look done yet.  Trust me.  They’re done.  After cooling on the counter for a few minutes they’ll set up beautifully and be just perfect.  If you’re one of those crazy people who likes a crispy cookie (then perhaps you should consider baking biscotti) you can go ahead and leave them in for an extra minute or so.

Whala!  The best chocolate chip cookies ever!  The secret is in the blended oatmeal and the grated dark chocolate: the blended oats give the cookies a wonderful, hearty texture without all the bulk and density of a whole oat while the grated dark chocolate ramps up the chocolate flavor making for a small, yet intense, cookie orgasm in your mouth.  All joking and bragging aside, I really do believe these are the best chocolate chip cookies ever.  Hope you enjoy them!

The batter:

Delightful little cookie dough balls:

Stacks ‘o cookies:

The cookie that soon found a home in my belly:

One note in the interest of full disclosure: I baked these cookies for Evan, my special man friend, who doesn’t like dark chocolate (don’t hold that against him, he’s a very likable guy beyond that) which is why you don’t see the lovely little flecks of dark chocolate peppering the cookies in these pictures that you will definitely see in your cookies if you choose to prepare them according to the recipe (you’d be a fool not to).  Normally I don’t indulge Evan’s dark chocolate aversion becuase it’s never seemed to stop him from enjoying them before, but this time things were different.  You see, Evan left yesterday for the Wrangle Range in Alaska.  He’ll spend the next month there climbing and skiing big mountains and doing the general adventure thing.  I figured since these cookies will act as fuel on his tour de awesomeness I would make them just the way he likes them – no dark chocolate.

Good luck and be safe up there baby.  Counting down the days…