This guest post is courtesy of Jennifer Bragdon, our favorite baker! You can find all of her gluten free recipes here. I also encourage you to read her path to recovery. Jennifer is an administrator for one of my favorite migraine support groups, Migraine Strong, and a fellow vestibular migraine warrior.
Have you noticed that I never bake with brown sugar? I found out early on into Heal Your Headache that molasses makes me spin. Yep, molasses! Within an hour of eating them I feel like I’m rocking and bouncing. Even though it’s not on the “avoid” list for Heal Your Headache, molasses is fermented and also contain a high level of sulfites, making it a no go for me. My mom knows what I sweet tooth I have and that in the beginning of my VM diagnosis, I was too sick to bake. Processed cookies from the grocery store were all on the “no list” of allowed foods. I heard that Trader Joes sold ginger snaps that contained ingredients that were head safe, so my mom made the trek over there and picked me up a couple of tubs of them. When I first started eating them, I honestly noticed no difference in my migraine symptoms, but back then I had ataxia every single day. Once I ran out of cookies, I had been on a low dose preventative medication for a few weeks and my daily symptoms were beginning to fade. My mom stopped by with a new delivery of cookies. I ate three of them and ataxia came rushing back. No more ginger snaps for me! About a week later, I was eating a bowl of organic granola cereal and again began to feel like I was rocking and dropping. I compared ingredients to the cookies and noticed molasses as being the only same ingredient. I tried them a couple more times to be sure and found the same results every time…molasses equal ataxia for me, bleh!
If molasses is not a trigger for you, you may want to use brown sugar here. Brown sugar adds a moisture and flavor depth to cookies that you just can’t get with regular sugar. Luckily I prefer my oatmeal cookies crispy rather than chewy so regular sugar did work well in spite of the missing moisture. The result was a nice soft center with a sweet crispy edge - yum!
Some tips -
- If you like a large thin cookie skip the dough chilling step. Chilling the dough will allow the butter to firm back up creating a denser, thicker cookie that doesn’t spread.
- For chewy cookies bake about 12 minutes. For crispy cookies bake up to 17 minutes.
- Make sure you purchase old-fashioned rolled oats for this recipe and not quick cooking oats. Quick cooking oats are pressed much thinner and won’t provide the same soft, chewy texture in your oatmeal cookies.
For more info on what white chocolate is best for you to use, please reference this post.
White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies - Gluten Free
Ingredients
- ¾ cup rice flour
- ¾ cup oat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup (8oz) kerrygold unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- ¾ cup natural cane sugar optional use ½ cup brown sugar & ¼ cup natural cane sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups gluten free rolled oats
- 2 cups white chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
- In a small mixing bowl add butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, fully mixing between each addition.I like to hand mix but you can use an electric mixer on low and add wet ingredients to flour mixture, mix until combined.Add oats mix thoroughly then add chocolate chips. Mix until just combined.
- Chill dough in the fridge for an hour (optional, but yields better results). Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Using a small cookie scoop or table spoon, place cookies on baking sheet about 2" apart.Bake for 12 -17mins or until edges are lightly browned.
- Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.
Alexandra says
These look delicious. Thank you for sharing the recipe! I don't see a yield. Do you happen to remember how many cookies will be in a single recipe? Thank you again!
Alicia says
I believe it's 24!
Hungry Heather says
YUUMMM...I made these and the only variation was salted butter instead of unsalted, so I cut the added salt in half. They are great!! Thanks for the share! I never cared for white chocolate before this diet but you better believe I LOVE it now! ???? The oats and rice flour make me think these are a bit healthier than the usual wheat flour cookies, but that could just be my excuse for eating them every day...
P.S. They freeze well, too.
Nicole says
These were delicious! I used butterscotch chips (hopefully those are HYH approved) because I didn’t have white chocolate. Thank you so much for all the advice/recipes you have given me. I pray God blesses you and your husband in this New Year!
Nancy PanyonFick says
Thanks for the information on adjusting regular flour for rice and oat flour. I'll give it a try.
Chris says
I made the cookies and they turned out great. Make sure to use the right kind of oatmeal (I used organic old fashioned rolled oats). So regular flour can be used.
Nancy says
Alicia/Jen,
Although I try to keep it to a minimum, I do not need to be gluten free. Can you make this recipe with regular flower? Does anything need to be adjusted?
Chris says
I looked this up. Regular flour can be used instead of rice flour and is equal to the same amount. When using oat flour you need to use 3 times as much as regular flour so I adjusted the recipe to 3/4 cup of regular flour and then 1/4 cup of regular flour to substitute for the oat flour. So, 1 cup of regular flour in all. If this flops, I will let you know.
Fran says
Highly recommend these and I am not usually a big fan of white chocolate.