Sara-safe Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This is still in development, but it is the second edible prototype. It has been adapted from a recipe in the Readers Digest Food Allergy Cookbook by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne. However, I still could not eat their allergy friendly recipe and had to make multiple adaptations, lol. Still not completely happy with this one, but at least it finally tastes like yummy cookie!!! Comments to help make it better are always appreciated!

½ cup softened butter
1/4 cup and 4 tbsp honey (the original recipe is 1/2 cup and 8tbp of cane sugars, use whatever sweetener you want and sweeten to your taste! Every sweetener makes this taste a little different though…)
Egg replacer for 1 egg
1 tbsp rice milk or goats milk

1 cup all purpose gluten free flour mix
½ cup almond flour (I added this because it drastically improves the taste of this recipe, sometimes I put more in, sometimes less)
1 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
1 tsp salt

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate chopped up – make sure no soy (Lecithin – can be from soy or egg, I can’t have either!) or cane sugars

Cream sweetener and butter together, add egg replacer and milk to that.
Mix together dry ingredients, and then whisk into wet ingredients.

Place blobs on small cookie pan (does not matter where, they will all melt together anyway into one big giant sheet of cookie, I am tempted to put this into a cake pan and see if they make better cookie squares instead)

Bake for 13- 15 minutes at 350, bottoms are very prone to burning so watch! I recommend using a silicon baking sheet to help prevent scorching on the underside, trust me, it's worth it, these guys love to burn!

A Brief Introduction

I am currently a web designer turned military software tester. This column is part of a creative outlet for me (believe me, I need one at my job!). I'll share weekly posts about recipes, recipe disasters, knitting patterns, various traditional and digital art and craft techniques, product reviews and related resources.

I have a fair number of food sensitivities and allergies which can cause havoc with my health. It has been a fun adventure learning to cook for all these issues, and also a major pain in the %*$ at times. I hope that by sharing these learning experiences, others might learn with me from some of my many mistakes!

As for my food issues I need to avoid; soy, eggs, cane sugar, peanuts, sulphites, and uncooked tomatoes. I have to limit my exposure to other foods as well; wheat (including wheat gluten and gliadin), barley, garlic, spelt, dairy, tomatoes, pineapple. My household also eats kosher, so I need to try to learn and observe those dietary restrictions as well :)

People can have difficulty understanding that food which is healthy for them, can make me very sick. I want to assure all of them that I am not making a comment on the healthiness of their diets, or the goodness of the food they enjoy. I have friends who worry that I could possibly be getting a healthy balanced diet or eating enough with these limitations. I assure them I am indeed eating very healthy (I really should post one of my weekly menus sometime!), in fact I eat more frequently then most of them :) That said, yes, I do miss the taste of certain foods, but not enough to ever eat them again, the days of migraines and weeks of rashes, not to mention other crippling effects, are simply not worth it! I better enjoy being healthier and more able to function day to day :D