Update: I’ve created a video to show you how to make these gluten free and vegan chocolate chip cookies.
The other day I received a call from Kelly about a potluck at my children’s school. This superwoman who doubles as first grade room parent and I spoke about taking the “luck” out of potluck.
During our chat, we touched on the significance of children breaking bread together and sharing in the most important part of the meal – dessert! To accommodate the different dietary needs of the first graders in my son’s class, I developed a dairy-free, gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Kelly and I enlisted five moms to bake these tasty cookies for the potluck and I’ve posted the recipe here for them.
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Dairy Free/Gluten Free)
Ingredients
- 2½ cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup grapeseed oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup agave nectar
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
- Stir together wet ingredients in a small bowl
- Mix wet ingredients into dry
- Form 1 inch balls and press onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet
- Bake at 350°F for 7-10 minutes
- Cool and serve
* Please note: Bob’s Red Mill almond flour does not yield successful results when used in this recipe. For more information regarding this matter please see my FAQs.
Jezka says
These cookies have been an awesome dessert solution for our toddler. She loves them and I feel they are nutritious. Recently, however, I have become concerned about the use of agave due to the extremely high fructose levels. I feel it is definitely a better alternative to most but has anyone substituted the agave for maple syrup? I will try this next time but looking for any guidance here.
Kelly says
I have changed the recipe slightly and use raw honey in place of the agave syrup. These are by far our favorite chocolate chip cookies and they are free from all of our food intolerances.
Kari says
Thanks for the recipe! I’ve used it twice for friends that are gluten free. I substituted almond flour with hazelnut (from Hazelnut Hill—www.hazelnuthill.com) and chocolate chips because they aren’t vegan. I love this so much, I use it every time! Thanks:)
yuukanon says
Thank you, Elena. I baked these for a vegan potluck party and people loved that and asked me to share the recipe. I sent the link to all :)
roz goldstein says
I just made these cookies with Bob’s Almond flour and they turned out great. I also used coconut oil instead of the grapeseed oil. and added almond extract and less sweetener. a wonderful treat. thanks
Ashley says
Best cookies ever!!!!!!!!
Anne says
I made these to the recipe (swapping 1/3 cup shortening for the grape seed oil) but after tasting the dough I tripled the salt. And they still came out unbearably (for me, my Mom loves them!) sweet. Next time, I’m going to cut the agave to a quarter cup. I love that this recipe uses agave in place of sugar, but the cookies come out with a very strong agave flavor which is disconcerting. I prefer less sweet chocolate chip cookies though, so other people may not have a problem with the agave taste.
Also, I used Bob’s Red Mill almond meal, pulsed it a few times in my food processor with the other dry ingredients to get it very fine, and the cookies came out just fine. The texture is nice and they hang together. So if Bob’s is all you have on hand (which is what happened for me,) I say go for it anyway!
roz goldstein says
I used the Bob’s and do not have a food processor so used it straight from the bag but used coconut oil so maybe that helped but they are great!!!!
Elizabeth says
Love your recipes and your site.
Am trying to get the word out to all us grain-free/SCD/Paleo/Gaps peeps who tend to eat alternative sweeteners that agave nectar is not a good sweetener choice. It has higher levels of fructose than HFCS and if eating too much in a day or week could be problematic.
Try other sweeteners like honey, grade B maple syrup, date sugar, or coconut crystals.
Best,
Elizabeth Roberts
Natural Chef
Sue says
New to you website and the first thing I tried was the Chocolate chip cookies with grapeseed oil. I’m following the Wheat Free Diet and they don’t allow Agave so left that out and used 3 drops of liquid Stevia. Also did not have grapeseed oil so used Salflower oil. Although they are delicate, they were great. I used mini choco. chips as again that’s all I had, but they made it sweet enough for me. They did not spread out which was probably due to not using Agave, but that’s fine. Next time (which I’m sure will be soon) I will add unsweetened apple sauce and see how that works. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks
Mathilde Couetoux says
Love this recipe; thank you.
Perfect for the kids to help me.
It works perfectly well for me with the bobs red mill flour and it was perfect. I just wrapped the dough in a plastic wrap (see the photo here: http://petitsplaisirsansgluten.blogspot.ca/2013/03/cookies-sans-gluten-aux-pepites-de.html) and refrigerate it for approximately 30 minutes before I baked them.
My little concern is the quantity of oil. Perhaps I will reduce from 1/2 to 1/4 next time; because I found the cookies too oily.
Has anyone tried with less oil?
Terry Hallfin says
Elana,
I made these chocolate chip cookies for my son for Valentine’s Day. I have always given him chocolate covered pretzels but he is now grain-free (and feeling much better). I was thrilled with how these cookies turned out-delicious and he felt like he had made out like a bandit because I also gave him your Simple Bread, that was also great. The hamantaschen are cooling right now. Thanks so much for your website. I love the simplicity of the recipes and how great they turn out.