Chocolate Chip Cookies

Michael Eisenwasser

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A drop-style chocolate chip cookie with a gluten-free flour blend and dark chocolate chips in place of the usual milk chocolate.

Prep 15 min

Cook 12 min

Serves 24

Gluten-free

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups (325 g) gluten-free flour blend
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup (150 g) packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup (170 g) dark chocolate chips (at least 60% cacao, no inulin or polyols)

Makes about 24 cookies. One serving is 1 cookie.

Instructions

Mix the Dough

1. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment.
2. Whisk the flour blend, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Beat the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar in a large bowl with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each, then beat in the vanilla.
5. Turn the mixer to low and add the flour mixture in two additions, scraping the bowl between each. Stop as soon as no dry flour remains.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

Shape and Bake

1. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough (about 30 g each) onto the prepared sheets, 2 inches apart.
2. Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway. The edges should be set and light golden; the centers will look slightly underdone.
3. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before moving them to a rack. They firm up as they cool.

Tips & Substitutions

• Pick a safe chocolate chip. Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chips, Pascha 70% or 85%, and Guittard Extra Dark are dairy-free and have no inulin or polyols. Most standard semi-sweet chips (Ghirardelli, Nestlé Toll House Dark) are also fine at 1 cup in a batch that splits 24 ways.
• Skip any "sugar-free" or keto chip. Brands like Lily's and ChocZero sweeten with xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, maltitol, monk fruit plus inulin, or stevia plus chicory root fiber. Those are high-FODMAP and will wreck the batch.
• Butter substitute. A 1:1 vegan butter stick (Miyoko's, Earth Balance soy-free) works for dairy-free cookies. Soft coconut oil works too, but the cookies spread more and taste of coconut.
• Chill for thicker cookies. Refrigerate the scooped dough balls for 30 minutes before baking if you want less spread and a chewier center.
• Freeze scooped dough. Portion the dough onto a sheet, freeze solid, then bag the balls. Bake from frozen at 375°F (190°C) for 13 to 15 minutes.
• If chocolate bothers your IBS, cut the chips to 1/2 cup and add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (10 halves is the Monash walnut serve, 10 halves for pecans).

Why This Works

Dark chocolate at a safe serve. Monash tests dark chocolate as low-FODMAP at 30 g per serve, which is about 2 tablespoons of chips. A 1-cup bag of chips divided across 24 cookies is roughly 7 g per cookie, well below the serve.

Butter math. Butter is low-FODMAP at 1 tablespoon per serve because it's mostly fat. One cup of butter across 24 cookies is about 2 teaspoons per cookie, which leaves headroom if you eat two.

GF flour blend holds it together. The gluten-free flour blend already contains xanthan gum, so no extra binder is needed. The rice and starch base keeps the crumb tender without the fructans in wheat.

Sugar isn't a FODMAP. White and brown sugar are sucrose, which is one glucose plus one fructose in a 1:1 ratio. The small intestine absorbs sucrose fully, so table sugar has no FODMAP load at normal baking amounts, though large quantities of sweets can still bother some people with IBS.

Storage

Store cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. For longer storage, freeze baked cookies in a zip-top bag for up to 3 months and thaw at room temperature for 20 minutes. Unbaked scooped dough freezes just as well and bakes straight from the freezer.

Not sure about an ingredient? FODMAP Tracker includes a database of 1,000+ foods with FODMAP ratings to help you cook with confidence.