Soft Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites

Super soft, thick and adorable, these gluten free chocolate chip cookie bites taste almost like cookie dough. One bite, and they're gone. Better make a big batch!

My latest cookbook, Gluten Free Small Bites, is my most savory cookbook. (huh?) I mean to say that it doesn't have a lot of sweets in it. Most of the recipes are more of the crispy, crunchy, cheesy, savory variety.

Think mini quiches, fritters of all kinds, jalapeño poppers and crab rangoon. In other words, YUM. Especially for the holidays, when miniature everything is in high demand. Oh, and during football season. And when you need a grab-and-go bite of this or that, there's a whole chapter on bigger bites, wraps and roll-ups.

I do love baking sweets, though. So there's one chapter called Sweet Endings in the book. And hiding in there are some of my absolute favorite desserts, like sugar cookie cups (so fancy! so easy!), bear claws, and petit fours. These heavenly little bites are on page 156.

The quickest way to get cheers of joy from your family is to bake them a batch of cookies. And chocolate chippers are everyone's standby favorite cookie. So what do you think happens when you make them a big batch of these miniature soft gluten free chocolate chip cookie bites?

You can imagine how many cookies my 3 children have sampled over the years. It's not a stretch to call them gourmet eaters of all things low-brow comfort food, my specialty.

So it surely means something when my 11-year-old daughter calls these mini chocolate chip cookies “heaven in the mouth,” and her “favorite cookie, like, birthday-worthy.”

Now it's not just that they're small. That only gets you so far. It's that they're impossibly thick and soft, and there's just enough of that brown sugar/molasses taste to bring them all the way home.

They're baked just until set, so they stay soft forever and ever. Well, until you eat them. In fact, there might even be a few cookies that are still nearly wet in the center when they come out of the oven. They're really one-bite cookies, but you'll want to nibble your way through, just to make them last.

Here's a genius idea ?: Make a double batch, and put those little hands to work rolling the cookie dough. Two birds, one stone!

Ingredients and Substitutions

Dairy

In place of the butter, try butter-flavored Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. If you use Earth Balance, there's just too much moisture and the cookies will spread a ton. Not good here! Be sure to use dairy free chocolate chips, too.

Eggs

Since it's only 2 eggs, I'd try 2 “chia eggs” (each chia egg is 1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water mixed and allowed to gel). I can't promise anything, but it's definitely worth a shot!

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Soft Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites

Sample rating item

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: >8 minutes

Yield: 36 bites

Ingredients

2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I like Better Batter here)

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

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (45 g) cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

6 ounces miniature semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar

6 tablespoons (82 g) packed light brown sugar

10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter, at soft room temperature

2 eggs (100 g, weighed out of shell), at room temperature, beaten

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.

• In a large bowl, place the flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda, and whisk to combine well. Place the chocolate chips in a separate small bowl, add about 1 teaspoonful of the dry ingredients, and toss to coat. Set the chips aside. To the bowl of dry ingredients, add the granulated sugar and light brown sugar, and whisk to combine well, working out any lumps in the brown sugar. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the butter, eggs and vanilla, mixing to combine after each addition. The dough will be thick and soft. Add the chips tossed in the dry ingredients and mix until evenly distributed throughout the dough.

• Drop the dough by the tablespoonful on the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart from one another. Roll each piece of dough tightly into a ball, press into a disk and replace on the baking sheets. Place the baking sheets in the freezer until just firm (about 10 minutes).

• Once the dough has chilled, place in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 8 minutes, or just until the balls of dough have melted and spread a bit and the cookies are set in the center. They will be very lightly brown around the edges, and some may even be slightly wet toward the center. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

• From the book Gluten-Free Small Bites: Sweet and Savory Handheld Treats for On-the-Go Lifestyles and Entertaining, by Nicole Hunn. Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Copyright © 2016.