#1 Best Coconut Chocolate Gluten Free Crinkle Cookies Ever

Some time ago, my mom compiled and gifted my siblings and I a recipe book of all of our family-favorites.  Inside was a recipe for Chocolate Crinkle cookies.  As a kid, these were my favorite homemade cookies.  My mom used to make these each year during the Christmas season (notice I didn’t say “Holiday” time or “Winter” – I know, so edgy of me).  For me, the cookies were just the right texture and combination of chocolaty sweetness.  I would eat many of them.  Nom-nom.  As I have grown older and balder, the cookie has remained one of my favorites (rivaled only by snicker-doodles and oatmeal-raisin cookies).

Cooking (and quite possibly baking) are zen-like opportunities for me to phase out all distractions and truly focus on the present.  It is the activity itself that I find so relaxing.  Having a gluten-intolerant (and often Dave-intolerant) wife often means preparing two versions of whatever it is I’m making.

For me, this double-zen and not something I mind at all.  Having no standing recipe for gluten free crinkle cookies, it was time for me to get creative.

Doing all I could to avoid a trip to the grocery store, I scanned our well-stocked pantry for gluten-free ingredients that could be aptly-applied to this occasion.  Hmmmm.  What is this I see?  Half a bag of gluten-free coconut flour… Chocolate and coconut certainly works.   White rice flour or gluten-free flour mix?  Sure, that works too.  I had found my wheat four substitutes.  The recipe also calls for canola oil.  Since I also happened to have coconut oil on-hand, I substituted the canola oil with coconut oil.

In my mind, I wanted a perfectly balanced chocolate-coconut flavored cooked.  I’ve found that coconut flavor can be a bit polarizing; some folks love it and others hate it, but few folks fall in the middle.  So…  I wanted the coconut flavor to be present, but certainly not overpowering the chocolate.  If I had to put it to percentages, I say I was trying to get about 65% chocolate flavor, and 35% coconut flavor.  In the end, I think I nailed that ratio.

Gluten Free Crinkle Cookies Recipe

Without further ado, here’s the final recipe for the Gluten-Free Coconut Chocolate Crinkle cookies:

• 1.5 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (love this brand)
• 3 oz of unsweetened chocolate – melted and cooled (I  used chocolate morsels)
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 milk
• 1 cup white rice or all-purpose gluten-free baking flour
• 1 cup organic coconut flour
• 2 t. baking powder
• powdered sugar (topping)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, blend the sugar, coconut oil, chocolate, and vanilla extract.  With a hand mixer or equivalent mixing device, slowly and thoroughly mix adding one egg at a time.  Once all eggs have been added and the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add in the gluten-free flour and the coconut flour (about a 1/2 cup at a time) while continuing to mix.  Add the milk and baking powder and continue to mix until everything is well-mixed.  The dough will be thick.

Cover the mixed dough and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.  You will want the cookie dough to be chilled as it is difficult to work with and can be quite sticky.

Once completely chilled and ready to bake, roll tablespoon-sized balls of the cookie dough.  Roll the dough-balls in a bowl of powdered sugar until covered in the powdered sugar.   Next, place on cookies sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake the dough in a preheated 375-degree oven for a total of 10-12 minutes.  At about the 5-6 minute point, carefully press the dough-balls with your fingers (place your fingers together, straight-out, and gently press straight down on the dough-balls – this will give the cookies their crinkled, ridged look).  You can remove the cookie trays from the oven to quickly do this, or you can press them while still in the oven.  Either way you choose, be very careful; 375-degree ovens tend to be hot and can burn you – duh.

Remove from the oven and place on wire cooling racks or the like.

Give the cooled cookies to all of your gluten-intolerant friends and become the hero of their universe.

Enjoy!