Pink Kitchen

So as you may have read in my previous post for Pecan Chocolate Chunk Cookies, we recently discovered that “Little Pink” (my daughter, Gabriella) has a sensitivity to gluten. I did not realize the full impact of this dietary change until Christmastime came upon us. Oh, no! All of our favorite holiday cookies are now off limits?!

Sadly, I have come to realize that many of the family recipes can not be replicated with gluten-free flour. *Sigh*

And so, I have been in the kitchen reinventing the wheel. As I am not a huge fan of brown rice flour, this has led me on a non-stop quest to create baked goods out of nut flours.

Nut flour is also sometimes called ‘nut meal’. One brand of nut flour that you will frequently see in grocery stores is Bob’s Red Mill, which sells almond flour and hazelnut flour. Another place to get nut flours is my new favorite website, nuts.com. They have a huge variety of nut flours.

Today’s recipe contains pecan flour. You can substitute almond flour if you’d like. (I haven’t tried the this recipe with almond flour, however; Little Pink is sensitive to almonds, too )

Stay tuned…I’ll have one more holiday cookie recipe for you as we get a bit closer to Christmas.

Happy Holidays, my Pink Kitchen friends!

(*Remember – we should not be eating large quantities of sugars on a regular basis. You should know that although molasses is natural and contains many minerals that our bodies need, it is also a type of sugar. So be sure to limit the amount of holiday treats you eat. It’s all about balance.)

Gluten-Free Mississippi Mud Cookies
2 1/3 c. pecan flour (or almond flour)
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. ground espresso
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. Earth Balance Coconut Spread
1/2 c. molasses
2 packets NuStevia
1 c. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl (except chocolate chips).
Mix wet ingredients in a larger bowl.
Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
Mix in chocolate chips.

Form into balls, about 1/2 inch in size, and place onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Flatten the tops of the balls (these cookies will not spread out on their own, so you need to help them ).
Bake 8-10 minutes. Check after 8 minutes for done-ness. They will be done when you touch the top of a cookie and it feels solid, rather than sticky.