Gluten Free Oatmeal Lace Cookies

I have been craving oatmeal lace cookies. My first attempt to making a GF recipe turned out to be more like oatmeal cookies than oatmeal lace. Oatmeal lace cookies are really delicate and more about the carmelized sugar than the oatmeal. My second attempt to make these, I used erythritol and they were really weird. Erythritol sometimes makes a minty cool flavor on the tongue, and it completely ruined these cookies. So this time I used stevia, and coconut palm sugar, with a little darker colored agave. You could use all agave, or all honey if you don’t mind the carbs. It should equal to 3/4 cup of sugar.  They are really delicious! And they are low G.I. if you make them like I did.

Really there is no way to make this dairy-free. So sorry for all followers who are following a GFCF diet. But I really believe the butter gives these cookies their flavor. Well, for dairy eaters… Be sure to use pastured organic butter to get plenty of CLA in your diet! I used Kerrygold.

These are not very sweet, and I like them that way. I am still not sure about this palm sugar.. though it is lower G.I. (almost half the G.I. of honey), it is still sugar. I made just half the batch to be safe.

You may melt a little dark chocolate in the top of a double boiler on low heat and then dribble onto the cookies if you like. These cookies are so fragile that it's hard to dip them like you sometimes see at the bakery.. so I dribbled.


Gluten Free Oatmeal Lace Cookies

½ c. almond flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon high quality stevia extract
1/4 c. coconut palm sugar
½ c. gluten free oats (make sure it actually says that or it’s not)
2 TBSP agave nectar or honey
1/3 c. melted organic pastured butter
2 TBSP organic cream
1 TBSP + 2 teasp vanilla extract
a few squares of 85% dark chocolate (optional) or 72% if you can handle extra carbs

Heat oven to 375˚F. Mix together flour, baking powder, and sugar sub (palm sugar/stevia, etc). Mix. Then add oats, agave/honey, butter, cream, and vanilla. Blend.

Put parchment paper on a baking sheet. Scoop out batter in very small lumps- about a ½ teaspoon or lesss each- and keep each cookie about 2 inches away from the next. The smaller these cookies are, the easier they will stay together.

Bake for about 5 minutes but keep an eye on them. The cookies will brown on the edges and make bubbles (lacy holes). When edges are dark brown or even black and they look lacy enough, remove from oven. Pick up parchment and place on a cookie sheet to cool completely. Remove carefully from parchment paper with a spatula. Mine came out black on the edges but did not taste burned. You can take them out before that happens, but they will be less lacy. If you did not use Stevia, but instead more of another sweetener, you might have a different outcome (if so, please post!). Store in an airtight container (if they last that long).

Optional: After cookies are cooled. If you don't have a double boiler, you can take a small pot and a small bowl that fits together- you want the small bowl to fit inside the pot with the bottom not coming more than 2/3rds the way down the inside of the pot. Now you have a makeshift double boiler. You want it to be snug- water that is boiling cannot splash into the bowl or you will ruin the chocolate. Now, we are not going to temper the chocolate, that is very difficult. We are going to ry and melt it very very softly so that we can hopefully retain some of the temper that is already in the chocolate so that it will harden. Fill just 1/3rd of your bottom pot with water and put the bowl/top boiler on top, making sure there is not a drop of water inside the bowl/top pot. Turn the heat on simmer or very very low and place a few squares of chocolate in the top- break them up so they will melt faster. Then wait until they start to melt, help them along by using a rubber spatula to stir them. Lay your cookies back out on parchment paper. When chocolate is melted, take a spoon and drizzle chocolate on the cookies and then let dry.