Double Chocolate Freezer Cookies! (Gluten Free Vegan)

Our family is vegan by choice, for health, for our children's health, for not supporting animal cruelty, and even for the eco-friendliness! Being vegan has it's challenges, and I can't say I've met every one with tenacity and vivaciousness, but we more than manage. Now apparently, I wrote in some journal somewhere about a year ago that I wanted to go gluten-free too one day, oh and all organic, that'd be nice to afford. But those were luxuries to me, heartfelt desires that were just goals and faraway dreams. Until February. 

My hands have been rid with eczema since before Kaylee was born. It started around my rings, and even in taking them off when fingers swelled in the late summer heat, I never could get rid of it. It got so bad that it hurt to touch water. So finally after almost 4 years of just dealing with it, I went in. I got creams, suggestions of suspending hand-washing, and the cop-out of "you'll just grow out of it." 6 months later I was out of cream subscriptions, and I really don't like daily doses of steroids on my hands, thanks! So I took it up with my girls' naturopath. A blood screen for allergies came back with gluten! Not just gluten, but wheat itself, all parts. So it looks like my dream became a reality...FAST!

I fought it! I had gluten blues, that hankering for my Wheat Thins, a good roll, a decent tortilla to wrap up my burrito. Depression and all out hormonal craziness for a whole week, about a month or so after cutting off gluten, is normal, so if you venture this way, be warned!

So from here on out, all of my recipes will be GLUTEN FREE VEGAN!! And you probably won't find an assortment of sandwiches, we have just learned to eat differently. Now I'm blessed with the best gal, Karina, who knows her way around gluten-free goodies: The Gluten Free Goddess!! So MANY of my recipes are inspired by her! 

But the sunshine is the inspiration for this recipe! Cold, slightly crisp, but chewy, fill your mouth up goodness, oh so perfect for hot summer days...

Double Chocolate Freezer Cookies!

Makes 5 dozen (but I doubt they'll see it to the month's end around here!)

Ingredients:

2 Cups Sorghum Flour (Also known as Jawar or Milo Flour...sold on AZURE STANDARD!! YIPPEE SKIPPY!! And Oh So Much Better than rice flour!)
1.5 Cups Potato Starch (not potato flour! Use Tapioca Starch if you don't have potato starch)
1 Cup Coconut Flour (Don't have coconut flour? Try another sweet flour like Almond or Oats)
2 Teaspoons Xanthan Gum
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2.5 Cups Sugar (Packed Brown is best)
1 Cup Olive Oil
2 Cups Soy Milk (Vanilla, or Plain) + 4 Tablespoons Corn Starch
2 Tablespoons Vanilla
1.5 Cups Chocolate Chips, DIVIDED
         or
1/3 Cup Cocoa Powder + 1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients; Sorghum and Coconut Flours, Xanthan Gum, Salt, Baking Soda, Sugar, and 1 cup of the Chocolate Chips (or the cocoa powder if you went that route!) Whisk to fluff and combine.

In a measuring cup, whisk the Cornstarch into the Soy Milk, you can do this step in two rounds if you don't have a 2 cup measuring cup. Microwave the mixture for one minute. Remove, whisk, return to the microwave for 30 seconds, remove, whisk, repeat. For 1 cup of milk it usually takes 2 minutes total, with the full 2 cups, it usually takes 3 minutes. But on that last whisk, the cornstarch-milk mixture will congeal. 

Pour the thick "vegan eggs" onto your dry mix. Add the rest of your wet ingredients; Oil, and Vanilla, then mix.

Mix for 5 minutes, as I've found sorghum to be a sneaky bugger and hides in pockets! Because you poured warm "eggs" onto chocolate chips, they should melt and turn the whole batter brown! After the batter cools, add the rest of the chips in to make a double chocolate wonderfulness!

Spoon the batter onto cookie sheets, watch out--they spread!

Bake for 14 minutes. If you did multiple racks of cookie sheets like I did, rotate at the end of 14 minutes and bake for another 3 minutes.

Remove the cookies and allow them to cool for 15 minutes on the counter. Then, using a spatula, re-home cookies to a container or plastic freezer bag. Allow cookies to set in the freezer for an hour before eating! 

Trust me, they're a crumbly mess if you don't!!

Now that's a cool and refreshing, delectable treat!! 

On the left, freezer cookie, on the right "salvaged" left-at-room-temp cookie!

And you know, I've been completely gluten free for 2 months now, and no, my hands still have eczema, but it's not nearly as bad as it was. Since the switch, my belly isn't so bloated all the time, and neither is Kaylee's! That's worth the switch right there! And, when I started divvying up wheat for my hens, halfway through my throat and lungs started burning, my nose started running, my eyes got all itchy and watery...sooo it took weeding it out for my body to figure it out, but I don't think it'd like me too much if I turned back now. So here's to loving new food! And NEVER feeling guilty about one ounce of it!