Flourless Fudge Cookies

I needed to send a cookie thank you to a gluten free person.  I had never baked gluten free.  It was interesting, not entirely successful but I’m happy to say that these cookies came out of my experimentation and they are delicious!

I tried Pillsbury BEST Multi-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Blend on my standard chocolate chip cookies.  Grainy, the batter was weird, they baked up weird, terrible and I threw them out.

Next I sent away for King Arthur Flour Measure For Measure Gluten Free Flour.  Made my standard chocolate chip cookies.  I must say they looked almost exactly like my cookies with regular flour: the dough and even how they baked up.  Tasted better.  KAF definitely knows what they are doing in the GF department, so that would be my go to choice if I was GF.  I did include those in my cookie thank you.

But my daughter, Sarah, suggested an entirely flourless cookie and this is the recipe she sent me.  They are amazing and from King Arthur Flour who not only has great recipes but a BLOG Flourish, that helps you get through the tricky part of a recipe.   Read the recipe twice, read the blog twice and you are good to go 🙂

Things that you must have for this recipe:  a scale, borrow one if you must.  But to tell you the truth if you don’t have one this is a perfect opportunity to get one.  More and more recipes include weight measurements because they are more accurate.  And I use mine for more than just baking.  It has proven very useful for weighing vegetables, meat, etc.

Also, really good cocoa powder.  Valrhona is my favorite, which you can get on Amazon or Whole Foods.  Also King Arthur Flour sells excellent cocoa powder as well.

If you go to the King Arthur flour recipe they will give you volume measurements as well.

Flourless Fudge Cookies from King Arthur Flour and Flourish

9 ounces confectioners sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder

3 ounces cocoa powder, the best you can afford, natural or Dutch process

3-3/4 to 4 ounces of egg whites (from 4 eggs)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

12 ounces Ghiradelli semi-sweet mini chips (the original recipe also suggests nuts or chopped dried fruit but I haven’t tried that yet)

Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper and spray with canola oil spray.

Whisk together the egg whites (start with 3-3/4 ounces first) and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, confectioners sugar through cocoa powder.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula.  Keep on stirring until fully incorporated.  I have made this recipe twice and both times I needed the extra 1/4 ounce of egg white to finish.

The batter will be very thick.

Add the chips and stir until completely incorporated.

Using a tablespoon cookie scoop or a tablespoon, drop the batter onto the prepared cookie sheet, keeping them at least 3 inches apart.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and let the cookies sit for 30 minutes.  This is VERY important.  You can clean up while the cookies are sitting, plan dinner, call a friend to chat.  Something.  But let them sit for 30 minutes 🙂

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes.  They will be ever so slightly crackly on top. Let them sit on the baking sheets until completely cool.  Then remove from the baking sheets.

Please READ the recipe and the blog.  Your size cookies might be different and thus the baking times might be different.

I made 22 cookies with the cookie scoop I had.

prepare baking sheets:

measure egg whites:

mise en place:

dry ingredients whisked:

add wet ingredients:

stir together thoroughly and add chips:

complete batter:

scoop onto baking sheets and let rest for 30 minutes:

preheat oven:

when cookies are done, let rest until completely cool:

yum!