Baking with Food Allergies can be challenging sometimes not to mention expensive. Last night after days of my 4.9 year old daughter requesting that we bake cookies I pulled out my families old chocolate cookie dough recipe with the hopes that I could easily convert it.

The big problem is we have MULTIPLE allergies, if it was just gluten or egg things would be very simple but we need to sub out nearly the entire ingredient list so that we are:

• Gluten Free
• Dairy Free / Casein Free
• Corn Free (this is a tough one)
• Egg Free
• Coconut Free
• Nut Free

Crazy Us – we still want it to be yummy, chewy and melt in our mouth!

Here is my recipe – and I will put what our substitutions are in parenthesis so you only have to sub out what you need to.

Cookies Recipe:

• 2 1/4 c. Flour (Bobs Red Mill GF All Purpose Flour)
  
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. brown sugar  (Use another 3/4 cup of granulated sugar if you are worried about Corn in the Caramel Color in Brown Sugar – its hard to know the source so if you have a corn sensitivity then just use granulated sugar – we opt for organic cane sugar)
  
• 1 tsp. baking soda – (Bobs Red Mill GF Baking soda)
  
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt – Use Kosher Sea Salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla – (Concerned about Gluten and Corn in your vanilla  because of the Alcohol? Make your own vanilla or use Simply Organic Madagascar Vanilla – be careful not all Simply Organic Vanilla is Gluten Free so you have to read the label – I believe the only one that is GF is the one that says Madagascar)
  
• 1 c. butter – (1 Cup Earth Balanced Butter: Although this technically has an ingredient that is derived from corn it has been heavily processed and both my highly sensitive daughter and myself can eat this without any issues, another substitute would be Organic Palm Shortening )
  
• 2 eggs  (Use 1/4 cup of applesauce for each egg for a total of  1/2 cup applesauce, The Go-Go Squeeze Applesauce Pouches are exactly 1/4 cup so no measuring cup needed. For this recipe I used one regular applesauce and one cinnamon applesauce. I am allergic to bananas but you can sub out 1/2 banana for each egg or you can use flax seed they will all work great at binding the cookies just play with the flavors you like best.)
  
• 12 oz. choc. chips (about 2 c.) (Enjoy Life Vegan Chocolate Chips: They are Vegan, Diary, Nut and Soy Free)

Special Notes:

• When I first made this batch the dough was very creamy – too creamy – so I added at least 1/4 cup more flour, use your judgment because it depends on how much of this recipe you substituted out. If you follow all the subs that I used then you will mostly likely need between 1/4 extra flour to a 1/2 cup). You want the dough to have a stiff consistency. This is also a place where you can use a different flour if you like such as Quinoa Flour, Garbanzo Bean Flour (be careful because this can make the a gritty texture) – play around with your favorite GF flour).
• The original recipe called for 1 tsp of salt – with all of these substitutions you really need some extra kosher salt – I taste the batter as I go along and make sure it has that “kick” – you want your cookies to have a tiny bit of saltiness to make the balance work.

Instructions:

• In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.
• In large mixer bowl, beat butter, sugars, and vanilla until creamy.
• Beat in Eggs (or Applesauce Substitute)
• Gradually beat in flour mixture.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Adjust amount of flour depending on the consistency of your batter

Baking:

• Preheat your oven to 375
• Cook on a cookie sheet with Parchment Paper for 12 minutes. If you are not using parchment you will want to gauge your cookies between 8-12 minutes.
• Drop by rounded measuring tablespoonfuls onto the cookie sheets. Bake until edges are a light golden brown.
• When I cook on parchment – I take the cookies out and let them cool on the pan – they cook a tiny more while they cool making them the perfect combination of soft and chewy.
• Makes about 5 doz. 2 1/4 ” cookies.

Enjoy!!! Hopefully this article can make it easier for other people who deal with Food Allergies!

Please comment on this post and let me know how this recipe worked for you and what you substituted – this will hopefully help other people dealing with food allergies!