How the Cookie Crumbles

It's beginning to look a lot like the holiday season and that means baking galore. My absolute favorite time of year. Between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, I usually find myself baking at least once or twice a week whether it be for parties, favors, or just for fun.

These cookies are my favorite to make as they are small enough to not feel that holiday guilt, but have a delectable buttery taste that always leaves you satisfied. The only issue, how in the world was I going to achieve the same buttery taste and texture with a gluten-free alternative? While gluten-free flours are available, many of them don't work how they should. 

It took countless tries with different brands of gluten-free flours from Pamela's to King Arthur's before realizing that the only way I was going to get the cookie I wanted was to find another alternative. All purpose gluten-free flour tends to not bake up in the same way that regular all purpose flour bakes up, making achieving the correct texture a real challenge.

I took to the computer to do some research about the best options so that my cookies wouldn't taste like cardboard as the previous batches had. The internet had become my encyclopedia, my resource for all things gluten-free as no one else in my family had ever dealt with this kind of intolerance before. To my surprise, there were other alternatives to regular gluten-free flour. There was flour made from almonds, chickpeas, quinoa, tapioca, and even rice! I had no idea flour could be made from so many different foods, and that each one had different attributes that made it ideal for baking or cooking certain dishes. 

I learned that almond flour and quinoa flours are good replacements for all-purpose flour, but quinoa flour tasted best when used in smaller amounts. Tapioca, chickpea, and rice flours on the other hand were much denser and could even be used to replace eggs! None of these flours, however seemed to fit the criteria I needed. Then I finally found it. Buckwheat flour. I know, it sounds strange, it has wheat in the name, how could it possibly be gluten-free? Surprisingly, buckwheat flour has no wheat in it, rather it is related to the rhubarb, and is ideal for baking cookies and pancakes.

Finally, I had found something that was going to make my butter cookies actually taste like cookies again! Quickly I gathered the other ingredients once again, ready to make the final batch, the one I would enjoy eating. I was so excited I nearly forgot the vanilla. Once I pulled the cookies out of the oven and decorated them with simple sprinkles, I timidly took a bite, nervous about whether this buckwheat flour would work as well as people said.

To my delight, the cookies tasted nearly as good as they did with regular flour. Cookies were the thing I baked most often before being affected by Celiac's, from chocolate chip, to butter, and peanut butter blossoms. This simple flour search began to change the game of baking for me, making everything seem realistic again.