If you just want to see photos + the recipe, feel free to scroll down. However, if you want to follow along my journey, learn a little bit more about me, or are simply curious what led me to bake these delicious, gluten free cookies then please read along and any likes or shares this post are greatly appreciated, as always.
There has been a lot of creativity flowing in my brain for the past few weeks and the only way I know how to successfully, productively, and enjoyfully channel that creative energy is through photography, baking/cooking, writing, and the occasional DIY. With that being said I have some really exciting and mind-opening blogs I am in the process of writing and creating a list of others to start on soon. Some of these topics are going to be much more challenging and time consuming to address, write out, and publish than others, but worth it, nonetheless. While I find my words for the more strenuous posts, it's important for me to not let myself be consumed over these topics and still allow myself to work on multiple projects at a time.
Baking is something that I have always enjoyed to do and share with those around me, it's like a science with an almost immediate and very satisfying and delicious reward. This experiment in the kitchen was not per my cravings, but my mother's who just had LASIK eye surgery this morning and needed something to sweeten up her day. We left the house at 5:15am to make it to her 6am appointment in Ontario. Her procedure was done just a little after 8am. The doctor said I had an hour to get her home before pain would kick in and only 30 minutes for the double dose of Xanax. We knew we wanted breakfast before we got home as we had both been up for almost 4 hours at this point so we stopped at a little bakery that had rainbow bagels along with lots of other yummy breakfast and lunch options. It was a tasty and colorful experience and I would recommend giving them a try if you're in the Rancho Cucamonga area and hungry for a quick and handheld breakfast!
My mom has been gluten free for a few months now and she seems to be feeling a huge difference since cutting gluten out of her diet. She's the one person in the house who doesn't usually ask me to bake but whenever I do she's usually left out because I bake with a lot of regular AP flour. So, when she asked me to bake her some cookies after her procedure, I knew it was the least I could do to make her day not feel so consumed by her medical procedure. She specifically requested salty peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. No big deal right? I just had to learn what ingredients to substitute regular flour for. Well, turns out they literally make GF all purpose flour, it's just crazy expensive and you don't get a lot. I did a mix of this flour, as well as, some almond flour to hopefully keep the cookies from falling apart. Other than that, it really is your basic cookie dough recipe.
As always, I combine my dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls before folding the two mixtures together. After that, add the toppings of your choosing (mine were semi-sweet chunks, milk chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips) then, I roll out my cookie dough into balls on parchment paper. I use a basic ice cream scoop to portion them, this makes BIG fluffy cookies that are sure to hit the spot every time. Once all my dough has taken individual ball form, I put it in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. This ensures your cookie dough, along with the butter inside, doesn't melt before it gets the chance to bake into a perfectly round cookie.
SIDE NOTE: My mom just walked into my room after her nap while eating a cookie to tell me these are the best cookies she's ever had. Coming from the woman who purchases GF cookie dough from a local vendor monthly is a HUGE compliment.
Anyway, after baking 3-4 cookies at a time for 10-14 minutes at 375 degrees is when I let my cookies finish cooking on the tray outside of the oven for maybe 3-5 minutes before transferring to the cooling rack and sprinkling with flaky sea salt. They need maybe an additional 10 minutes to cool, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell you what to do when it comes to waiting - there's just something so enjoyable about fresh, hot out of the oven cookies. I always strive for full honesty so I just gotta let you know: I didn't wait, I burned my mouth and I'm not even a little upset about it.
After making 2 batches and being quarantined for the past 5 months, I decided to have a little photoshoot with the cookies. They came out so cute, so can you blame me? Of course you can't! Try not to smell or lick your screen as Rachael Ray has not yet invented smellovision. All the images were taken with only natural light, Canon 5D MarkII and Canon 50mm f/1.4. I kept my aperture between 2.2-5.6 depending on the angle, lighting, background, and closeness of my camera to the cookie. For the backdrop I used some plants, a wood accent wall in our home and a presentation board with some of Walmart's self-adhesive faux marble. To accent the cookies, I used some raw ingredients around the bowl. I considered adding a cup of milk, but I don't even really drink milk, aside from almond or oat milk in my coffee, so figured this was fine. These might be some of my favorite, quickly thrown together images.
I would love to try one of your favorite recipes, please do share by commenting below or sending an email to rachelashphoto@gmail.com and title it as "My Favorite Recipe" so it doesn't go to my spam folder! I am trying to be more adventurous and open-minded to new foods so even if it isn't popular among your peers but you love it, that's good enough for me. Also, let me know if you try these cookies: gf or regular and tell me what you think! Be sure to be patient and let your dough chill before baking, I promise it is WORTH THE WAIT! Cannot say the same for the wait once they are out of the oven though, so share with your loved ones, dig in, and enjoy!
INGREDIENTS:
unsalted melted butter - 1/2 cup
dark brown sugar - 1/2 cup (packed)
granulated sugar - 1/2 cup
vanilla extract - 2 tsp
eggs - 1 large + 1 yolk
almond flour - 1/2 cup
gf all purpose flour - 1 cup + 2 tbsp
baking soda - 1/4 tsp
salt - 1/4 tsp
milk chocolate chips - 1/2 cup
semi-sweet chocolate chunks - 1/2 cup
reese's peanut butter chips - 1/2 cup
flaky sea salt - for sprinkling
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