Wheat-Free Oatmeal Cookies

Welcome to another post by a guest blogger! I'm Molly, and Tia has been asking me to post for weeks. Ever since she name-dropped me in this post, the pressure has been on. I told her that my first post would be the cake that I am making us next week in honor of our birthdays, but my mom and I made cookies tonight so I thought that I'd start off with those instead.

A few years ago, my mother had an allergic reaction to something that she ate and discovered that she was allergic to wheat. This has, obviously, had a big impact on what she can eat, especially since wheat is often added to items you wouldn't expect since it acts as a thickener. While gluten- and wheat-free products don't always resemble their gluten-laden counterparts, my mom has found a few recipes that she loves, and these oatmeal cookies have become a family favorite. You really can't tell that they don't have wheat in them (they call for oat flour instead of the traditional unbleached wheat) and while they can be made with healthy items such as fruit (we have some dried cherries in our cupboard, which would probably be fantastic), our family uses butterscotch and toffee bits.

Wheat-Free Oatmeal Cookies

What You'll Need:

3/4 cup granulated sugar (we substituted 2/3 cup Splenda)

1/3 cup margarine (we used Smart Balance)

1/3 cup honey

2 egg whites, slightly beaten (Note: if you double this recipe, use 3 egg whites.)

1 tsp almond extract

2 1/4 cups uncooked quick oats

1 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sliced almonds (we substituted 1 cup walnuts)

1/2 tsp salt (optional -- we didn't add any to our batter)

1/3 cup raisins, chopped prunes, coconut, etc. (optional -- we substituted a bag of Nestle butterscotch morsels and a bag of Heath english toffee bits)

Also, we added about a tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg to the batter, even though they were not called for -- my mom said that she did this by mistake once and really liked the resulting cookies, so she always adds these spices now.

What To Do:

Preheat your oven to 350F. Add the sugar, margarine, and honey to a large bowl and beat until fluffy, like so:

Add the egg whites and almond extract and beat until mixed. Then combine the dry ingredients and nuts in a separate bowl. We chose to use a small one, thereby making the combining process unnecessarily precarious. We like a challenge.

Add the combined dry ingredients and nuts gradually, mixing well. I recommend that you accidentally turn the mixer on really high and get flour and oatmeal everywhere. I seem to do this every time I bake, so it doesn't really feel like I'm getting the full baking experience if I skip this crucial step. Once this mixture is all incorporated into the batter, you mix in anything else that you want to add to your cookies, e.g. fruit, coconut, chocolate, or candy.

Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto ungreased cookie sheets and press each mound into a flattened circle. You will have to form the cookie shape more than usual, since this batter doesn't hold together as well as most. This is normal, so don't be alarmed. Bake the cookies for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown. Let the cookies cool for one minute on the cookie sheets and then remove from the pans. You might find that some of the cookies fall apart as you take them off of the cookie sheets but that just means that you'll have to eat them since they are damaged! The cookies can be difficult to remove, so my mom recommends using a scraper like this if you have one.

This recipe yielded four dozen cookies, although you could probably get more, since I used generous tablespoonfuls. These cookies sound like they'd be really sweet, but they are actually not overwhelmingly so. The combination of oatmeal and butterscotch is one that I've grown up with and have always loved. The addition of the toffee gives the cookies a crispy textural element, since the toffee melts in the oven and hardens as the cookies cool. Also, while I normally don't like nuts in sweets, the flavor of the walnuts really compliments the other flavors in these cookies. You get a different combination of flavors in every bite, which is what makes these cookies so addictive!

And as an added bonus, they are Mom-approved!