It All Ends Here - With Vegan and Gluten-Free Coconut Chocolate Cookies!

Most of you know that T, my 11 year old, is allergic to wheat.  He is not a celiac nor is he allergic to gluten.  But if we eat gluten free we are guaranteed to be wheat free.  It has been a challenge to go from a fully traditional omnivore family, to a partially vegan family, and then to a partially vegan partially wheat free family in less than 3 months.  And when you add in that one of the “extra children” (that’s what my parents used to call the kids who spent a lot of of time at our house when we were young and therefore the term I now use for kids I expect to see and feed on a regular basis who don’t happen to be my own) is allergic to dairy and soy, it has made me really think about what I cook and bake.

So not only do I look through vegan blogs for inspiration, but I look through gluten free ones too.  And for awhile I’ve been noticing the cool monthly blog carnival called “Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free!”  This is where there is a theme and you create a gf recipe to go with that theme.  Your whole blog doesn’t have to be gf, just this particular post.  So I’ve been thinking about participating but often forgetting.  And then this month’s theme was announced!

“It All Ends Here” with a Harry Potter tie-in!  Meaning the theme was selected because the last installment of the HP movies comes out this month.  And the way the theme was interpreted was that you could create something you’d eat at the end of the meal.

Well, since T is a major Harry Potter fanatic AND I had already bought him his midnight ticket to see the movie at premiere AND he’s the GF one, I thought this was the perfect month for me to join in!

I told him about this one day in the car and he was into it from the beginning.  He had lots of ideas for what I should make.  At one point he came to me and said “Ok mom.  We need 7 sheet cakes, rice krispie treats, green jello, black frosting, a bat cookie, skewers and a spoon.”  After I stopped laughing hysterically I told him that many of those things were not vegan and therefore wouldn’t work for me, and that this wasn’t the scale I was thinking about anyway.  (It was to make a cauldron cake, of course!)

We discussed options and decided that a quick and easy dessert that he could pop in his mouth right before the movie would be the right thing.  So I played with a recipe I’ve been enjoying from “Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar” to come up with these Coconut Chocolate Cookies that he loves!  I fed them to T and his friend A right before they left for the midnight showing.

To start with you need to make this gluten-free cookie mix.  It’s based on the one by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero.  If you make this amount you will have enough for the cookies plus a little extra.  I make this in big batches and keep it in the fridge for cookie baking.

  They weren’t that thrilled that I was taking photos of them at 10:30 pm but they loved the cookies!

Gluten-Free Cookie Mix

1/2 cup coconut flour

2/3 cup white rice flour

2/3 cup quinoa flour

6 tablespoons tapioca flour

2 tablespoons flax meal (ground flax seeds)

Mix all ingredients in a big bowl with a whisk until it’s very mixed.  Store in a covered container in the fridge.
Yes, he was making fun of me!

Vegan/GF Coconut Chocolate Cookies  

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup nondairy milk (I use So Delicious Coconut Milk)

1 tablespoon flax meal

1/2 cup dairy free chocolate chips, melted

1 1/3 cups gluten-free cookie mix

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-2 cups organic shredded coconut

Directions:

In a big bowl mix the sugar through melted chocolate chips until well combined.  Add in the rest of the ingredients except the coconut.  Mix well and then chill for at least 20 minutes.

While it is chilling preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Put the coconut in a flat bowl, and spray your pan with a gluten free cooking oil.

Roll the dough into small bowls, then roll them in the coconut.  Place them on the tray with a little distance between them (they will spread some but not too much).  Bake for 14 minutes or until the coconut is just starting to brown.  Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes.  Then put them on a cooling rack and let them cool completely.  Makes about 3 dozen cookies.  Store in a covered container.

For those of you who saw the pictures on my facebook page of the crinkle cookies, you use the same dough.  Instead of rolling the dough in coconut you roll them first in granulated sugar and then in powdered sugar (making sure to go heavy on the powdered sugar!).  

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