I’m relieved to say there is a happy ending to my Apple Butter venture… :D

A very delicious ending.
Thanks for all your helpful comments yesterday! You sure know how to help a gal out. I loved reading everyone’s different methods for making apple butter.
After 4 more hours of slow cooking yesterday morning over medium heat (with the lid ajar), buttery apple bliss happened. The apple pieces all broke down and the sauce turned into a thick & dark butter, no post-blending required. I was a happy girl.
Five pounds of apples made about 1 & 1/4 cup of apple butter. Boy, does it ever cook down! Some of you mentioned that not adding a lot of sugar (I used 1/3 cup Sucanat as opposed to 4 cups white sugar) might prolong the cooking process, so maybe that’s why it took longer for me. It took about 19-20 hours in total.
If I thought I loved store-bought apple butter (Eden Organic has a great no sugar added one), homemade is a gazillion times better! I want to test it one more time before I post the recipe for you guys. I think we might go apple picking this week, so it will be a good opportunity to test it out again! I also want to make peach and pear butter too. I’m hooked. :)

Speaking of testing, I was on a mission to make vegan and gluten-free chocolate chip cookies to bring with us while we visit family this week. I adapted my Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and tried out a few different gluten-free flours. I didn’t want to use any weird gums or other ingredients, but keep it as simple as possible.
I made 3 trials:

Trial #1:
I used 1 cup of brown teff flour and 1 cup of Bob’s Red Mill almond flour (everything else in my recipe was the same)

No dice. The teff flour gave them a gross sand-like and gritty texture! I have not had much success when using teff flour at all. There is nothing worse than a gritty texture in gluten-free baked goods.
Trial #2:

I used 1 & 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill almond flour and 1 cup gluten-free oat flour (I simply processed certified gluten-free oats in my Vitamix until a flour-like consistency)

These are the ‘picture-perfect’ cookie with a great thickness too! The taste was a million times better than using teff flour. The almond flour gave them a very prominent nutty and buttery taste that we all loved. However, I felt that the almond flour was a bit too pronounced in this cookie (over-powering the sweetness) and wanted to reduce the amount slightly.
Trial 3:

…made a classic thin & crisp cookie with a ton of chew.
I used 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill almond flour and 1 cup gluten-free oat flour.
By just reducing the almond flour by 1/4 cup, the cookie was much thinner, crisp, and chewy.

While I generally love a thicker cookie, these were by far everyone’s favourite! By reducing the almond flour, the sweetness was able to come through much more. We also loved how crisp and chewy they are.

The winning cookie profile:
- crisp yet chewy
- Nutty and strong buttery flavour (thank you almond flour)
- sweet, but not over-powering
- slight ‘taffy’ feel to them from the nut flour
- addicting!
- What they are not: Soft & doughy
Let’s review:

I’m guessing if you wanted a thicker cookie with the sweeter taste of the winning cookie, you could add a couple more tablespoons of almond flour along with a couple tablespoons of additional sugar. I also want to test these again using Sucanat sugar as a sweetener.


Vegan and Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield
18-20 cookies
Prep time
Rest time
10 minutes
Cook time
Total time
Thin, crisp, and chewy. While these aren't your typical soft and doughy cookies, we loved them anyways. The almond flour gives them a taffy/chewy texture and it was hard to eat just one. The cookies firmed up quite a bit by the next day, so I would suggest cooking them a bit less than 12 mins (which was what I did). Adapted from my Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Ingredients
- 7 tbsp Earth Balance + 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (I used organic)
- 1/4 cup organic cane sugar (or use white sugar)
- 1 flax egg: (1 tbsp ground flax mixed with 3 tbsp water)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup gluten-free oat flour (I processed 1 cup certified gf rolled oats into flour)
- 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour (add 2 tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour if you want a thicker cookie)
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix together the flax egg and set aside.
- With an electric mixer or in a stand mixer, beat the Earth Balance and oil until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat for 1-2 minutes until creamy. Beat in the flax egg and vanilla extract.
- Beat in the remaining ingredients and fold in the chocolate chips.
- With wet fingers, shape balls of dough and place on the baking sheet. The dough will be very sticky but don’t worry! No need to flatten the balls down! Bake for about 10-11 minutes until slightly golden along edges. Allow to cool for 5-10 mins. on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack for another 10 minutes.
By the way, I also called Earth Balance and they told me that all of their products are gluten-free. Nice!

Have a great Friday cookie monsters!
I have to say these cookies are by far the best tasting gluten free vegan cookies I have eaten. I only had one problem…they came out really greasy and although I spaced them pretty far on the cookie sheet they made 1 big cookie…..twice. Any suggestions? My earth balance butter was smushed so maybe I added too much? That being said, I will try again. Great flavor and my husband cannot wait to come home from work to try them.
I just made these today for my local Buddhist meditation retreat, and they are delicious! The group serves vegan food, but there are also gluten intolerant members. I offered to make cookies for our tea ceremony, and these fit the bill. I could not get over how wonderful they tasted! My daughter is a vegan, and I try to incorporate as many vegan dishes into my diet as possible, but baking has always been challenging. This recipe has changed my mind! I look forward to trying your other cookie recipes.
Hi!!!!
First I need to thank you for having this blog, its been amazing and much more easy for me to become vegan. I’m from Colombia so, some of the ingridients are difficult to find. I whould like to know what is Earth Balance of how can I replace it.
Thank very much again!
These look great ! Can I use oil instead of the butter ? Also an egg instead of the flax ?
I did! I used 4 Tbsp of coconut oil rather than the Earth Balance/olive oil combo. Next time I’d go up to 6 Tbsp.
I made a couple batches. The first was perfect, the best chocolate chip GF cookie I’ve had! The second came out ok, a little porous, and much crispier. I I used blanched vs non blanched almond flour for each batch. Would that make a difference?
Hi Patricia, I do find the difference in almond flour vs almond meal can make a difference. That is probably what did it. Hope you enjoyed them anyway! :)
Where do you find vegan, GF dark chocolate chips? I’m dying to find some;)
We use Enjoy Life brand, but they’re not dark chocolate. They have big chunks, and morsels.
So I made this recipe and the results were absolutely inedible. I was all disappointed and then realized that I mistook the bulgur wheat for turbinado sugar… hahahha. FAILURE. Will definitely try again with proper ingredients :)
Oh bummer!!! hahah…sorry to hear that. Better luck next time!
I made these today. I used 1 cup millet ground, and 1/2 cup each buckwheat and sorghum. I wouldn’t use the buckwheat again, it’s gritty. In order to save the dough, which had the texture of wet sand, I had to use two eggs. I am not vegan, but we do eat a lot of vegan/vegetarian meals and snacks. Thanks for posting.
These look so amazing! I’ve been craving chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t have earth balance where I live. Is there any way you could use canola oil instead?
You could try coconut oil! It’s solid, so I’d guess it would probably substitute pretty well. :)
Hi Angela,
Can I use Brown Rice flour or White rice flour, in place of almond flour?
I find the almond flour tast to distinct.
I used half brown rice flour and half almond flour, and the cookies taste great. Not too “almondy”.
These are terrific! I had made them once as-is, but today I subbed coconut sugar for both sugars and added some rolled oats, coconut, pecans, and ¼ tsp almond extract. They made some pretty wicked cowboy cookies! :)
Tried these tonight and they were my first baking fail from your website! :(
I’m not sure what I did wrong but I couldn’t get them off the pan in one piece so I’m now eating (delicious) cookie crumbs.
They also seemed very flat so I will try more flour next time.
May I suggest using parchment paper to line your pans? Also, let them cool on the pan a few minutes before taking them off.
Hi Angela,
I love your cookie recipe, it’s my go to whenever I have my gluten free company over, they are gone within minutes! I was wondering what you think I can substitute for the brown sugar ( coconut sugar?) and earth balance, thanks!!
We aren’t gluten-free here. Heck, we aren’t even vegan, but we try to eat mostly plant-based food. I’ve made these cookies 3 times already (from the cookbook version) and we are addicted! I seriously don’t want to make any other cookies:-) I love the crispy/chewy texture and the flavour is sooo good. I LOVE THESE, can you tell?
Oh I just noticed the cookbook version is quite different. I used coconut oil and it also calls for almond butter, so I used the Roasted Maple Almond Butter recipe and used that. (another favourite in our house- we are going through a lot of almonds!)
I’ve recently had to eliminate wheat, dairy and eggs from my diet because they seem to cause my baby’s eczema to flare…finding this recipe has brought one of my favourite things back into my life! I didn’t have any oats on hand, but I did have some brown rice flour. I used one cup of that with one cup almond meal and the cookies are lovely. Not so thin as in your photos, I don’t know if that’s because of the flour substitution, but they are delicious! Thank you!
Just made these and OMG….might be the best cookie I have ever tasted! Love the almond flour and the crisp is just right! Thank you!!!
Hi Angela!
I love your vegan gluten-free choc chip cookie recipe!
Would you happen to have the nutritional breakdown?
Thanks!
-karen
Can I use a sugar substitute like coco sugar? Thanks :)
Absolutely love these cookies! Paired with almond milk, they’re my go-to treat :)
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
~Chloe
http://onethousandsunsblog.wordpress.com