Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, & Egg-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

On the morning of Sunday, July 11th, my friend sends me a text saying, "I feel like having a cookie."  At that moment, I had the most immense yearning for a cookie that I've ever had.  For those of you who don't know me too well, I'm really just not a sweets fan.  Yes, they're very tasty, but I am content without them.  What I'm saying is, it is odd to have a craving like this consume me so suddenly.

So the hunt began.  After looking through about a dozen cookbooks and searching the internet, I settled on a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free oatmeal raisin cookie recipe from Sophie-Safe Cooking by Emily Hendrix.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup (1 stick)   margarine or shortening (I used Earth Balance buttery spread)

1 cup                    brown sugar

1/2 cup                white sugar

1 tsp.                   vanilla

1/3 cup                rice milk (I used Almond Breeze)

2 1/2 cups            GF oat flour

1 tsp.                   cinnamon

1/2 tsp.                baking soda

1/4 tsp.                salt

2 cups                  GF old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup                    raisins

With a mixer, mix the Earth Balance and sugars.  Add vanilla and Almond Breeze and mix again.  Add GF oat flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt and mix well.

Finally, stir in the GF old-fashioned oats and raisins.  Drop the dough on cookie sheets.

The author suggests making rounded tablespoon-sized cookies and baking at 350°F for 12 minutes making about 4 dozen cookies.  That's nice, but I made my cookies about 3x larger and baked them for about 18 minutes making 18 large cookies instead of 48 itty bitty ones.

Now some notes:

1. Make sure you purchase gluten-free oats!  Bob's Red Mill makes some amazing gluten-free oats that I highly recommend.
2. Unfortunately, Bob doesn't make gluten-free oat flour.  He does make gluteny oat flour, so don't purchase that by mistake.  Instead, make your own gluten-free oat flour with your gluten-free oats in a blender or an Ultimate Chopper.
3. Earth Balance is a gluten-free, dairy-free (and egg-free) buttery spread.

Here is my experience.  First, I don't cook.  That said, I definitely don't bake.  So if I can do this, so can you.

The packaged ingredients.  Yes, I had to actually buy sugars because we got rid of all of our sugar.

Next, in our Ultimate Chopper:

Gluten-Free Oats turn into Gluten-Free Oat Flour!

Oatmeal raisin cookies made with oat flour.  Doesn't that just make sense?

The measured ingredients.  Yes, those are shot glasses...from IKEA!

Now the weirdest thing happened.  About 1 minute after adding the dry ingredients to the mix, I started crying.  It just suddenly happened.  They were tears of pure joy!  I've missed oatmeal raisin cookies so much and now I get to have them again!

Here is the dough after adding the whole oats and raisins:

Yum!

 On the cookie sheet. 

Cookie sheet close-up.

All baked!

The finished product!
 

They taste just like "normal" cookies!  I'm so happy.  For you Despicable Me fans out there, they're so yummy I'm gonna die!!!

Jason 

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