Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Chips

If you love crunchy cookies, these gluten free chocolate chip cookie chips are going to be a fast favorite. You can't eat just one!

These are not your ordinary chocolate chip cookie ?

These gluten free chocolate chip cookies are unlike anything you've ever had before (unless, of course, you've had chocolate chip cookie chips before). They're just under 2-inches in diameter (about the size of an Oreo cookie), thin as a wisp, and they're as addictive as potato chips. 

I've published my fair share of gluten free chocolate chip cookies. And then some. Thick and chewy, thin and crispy, thick and crunchy, you name it.

When, years ago, a longtime reader asked me to make a copycat recipe for the chocolate chip cookie chips from HannahMax Baking (which I had never, ever heard of), I figured, can't you just use this thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe? 

You can't. These cookies are just that unique.

What makes these cookies so special?

These cookies aren't like oatmeal lace cookies, which are delicate and seem to bend in parts and shatter in others. These are uniformly crisp and firm all the way through and are surprisingly less fragile than you might think. 

You don't eat them by the handful, but you do eat them one after the other. Okay, just one more they're so thin and wispy and delicate and adorable. The texture reminds me of a graham cracker, but with the flavor profile of a chocolate chip cookie. 

Rather than using brown sugar, which is just refined granulated white sugar with molasses added to it, the recipe calls for granulated sugar with half of a tablespoon (or 1 1/2 teaspoons) of molasses in the whole batch. That way, the cookies bake up very crispy but are still unmistakably chocolate chip cookies. No molasses flavor, no chocolate chip cookie. 

Is there a faster way to make each individual cookie?

The way the recipe is written, these cookies do take a few extra minutes to shape. They're portioned easily if you use a #50 spring-loaded ice cream scoop, which I do in the video. But then you have to roll each scooped portion into a ball and press into a flat disk. 

Once you get a rhythm going, it doesn't take long at all. And of course, the end result is completely worthwhile. 

I have tried shaping the cookie dough into a log that's about 1 1/2-inches in diameter, and then slicing through it. But that creates its own set of issues since you have to chill the dough just enough to make it sliceable.

If you chill the dough too much, the cookie dough splinters as you try to slice through it and you're piecing together shards of cookie dough like a cookie ?surgeon. Plus, only when the cookie dough begins at room temperature does it spread just enough to make a perfectly crisp cookie from end to end. 

If you can come up with a faster, and effective, method of shaping the dough, please share with the group! I'm all for crowd-sourcing a quicker way to these perfect cookies. Because they are, truly, perfect. 

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy-free: The dairy in this recipe that would need to be replaced is butter. Since it provides flavor and just the right amount of moisture and fat to make the perfect crispy cookie that spreads, but not too much, those are some big shoes to fill if you want to replace it. 

I would try replacing it with half (56 grams) Earth Balance buttery sticks and half (56 grams) Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. That should help approximate the flavor and moisture balance of butter. Otherwise, you can try using Melt brand vegan butter, with which I have had a fair amount of success in baking.

Egg-free: There is only one egg white in these cookies, and it helps provide structure and balances the moisture (egg whites are actually drying in baking). You can try replacing it with aquafaba (the brine from a can of chickpeas), but I'm honestly not sure how it would turn out. If you experiment, please let us know how it goes!

Cornstarch: You can replace the cornstarch in this recipe with nearly any other light starch, like arrowroot or potato starch. Either should work great. If you are using a higher-starch all purpose gluten free flour blend like Cup4Cup, I recommend replacing the cornstarch with 18 grams more Cup4Cup. 

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Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Chips

Sample rating item

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: >9 minutes

Yield: About 3 dozen cookie chips

Ingredients

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (158 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

2 tablespoons (18 g) cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

7/8 cup (175 g) granulated sugar

8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 egg white (25 g), at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons (10 g) unsulphured molasses

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 ounces miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.

• In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and granulated sugar, and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add the butter, egg white, molasses, and vanilla, and mix to combine. The cookie dough will be thick but soft and may feel a bit greasy to the touch. Add the miniature chocolate chips, and mix until the chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough.

• Scoop or pull off pieces of dough that are about 1 1/2-teaspoons each. Between your palms, roll the portions cookie dough into balls about 3/4-inch in diameter, press firmly into a flat disk, and place 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheets. With the tips of your fingers, pat each ball of cookie dough a bit flatter, until each is no thicker than the miniature chocolate chips in the dough (about 1/8-inch thick). Place the baking sheets, one at a time, in the center of the preheated oven and bake until golden brown all over and just firm to the touch, about 9 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet. To maintain crispness, store cookies in a glass jar at room temperature, or in a freezer-safe container in the freezer.

• Originally published on the blog in 2014. Text and photos mostly new; recipe unchanged; video new.