 |
| Mom's Cookie Jar |
My earliest cookie-eating memories date back to my preschool
years. My Grandma Padgett kept homemade molasses cookies in a green
hippopotamus-shaped jar on a shelf in her little kitchen. I had to climb up on
the cabinet to reach them, but they were always worth the effort.
My mom’s cookie jar was shaped like a full moon. The handle
on top was a cow jumping over the moon—and the cat and the fiddle and the escaping dish and spoon were poised along the bottom
of the jar. This container rarely held homemade delicacies—my mom, a busy
English professor, didn’t have much time for baking—but I still loved the
contents: store-bought oatmeal raisin cookies, Oreos or Chips Ahoy.
My poor children, I’m afraid, didn’t find many cookies in
their cookie jar, either homemade or store-bought. In fact, our family jar,
which was a glass replica of a Quaker Oats box—with the Quaker Oatmeal recipe
for oatmeal cookies conveniently printed on the back—was usually filled with
Boxtops for Education that I had ripped off the top of their cereal boxes to
send to school.
On snow days and other random occasions, however, I
sometimes exposed my children to the real homemade treats—frequently those labor-intensive
Quaker oatmeal cookies. (By labor-intensive, I mean they had at least ten
ingredients that I was required to measure carefully. Sheesh!) I may not win
any awards for being Mother of the Year, but don’t feel too sorry for them. They
weren’t completely deprived.
A funny thing has happened, though. Since my celiac
diagnosis, I’ve become a more frequent cookie baker. Within the first week of
receiving my celiac “sentence,” my good friend Pat Baker stopped by my house to
cheer me up with some fresh, homemade gluten-free Peanut Butter Cookies.
Her delicious cookies, unbelievably, contain only three
ingredients: 1 C. sugar, 1 C. peanut butter, and one egg. Stir them up, drop
them onto a cookie sheet, and bake them for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees, and
you have a quick treat that will make folks think you’ve slaved all day over a
hot oven. (You can even make the criss-cross pattern on the top by mashing them
with a fork. I’ve also pushed Hershey’s Kisses into their centers just after
removing them from the oven to dress them up a bit.)
It’s Pat’s recipe that I turn to most often now. If I had
owned it earlier in life, my children probably wouldn’t have grown up “cookie-free.”
Gluten-free cookies are pretty tasty. In fact, I’ll
bet you can’t even tell the difference. Most recipes can be followed as written
by substituting the flour with a gluten-free baking mix, such as Domata, Better
Batter, or Bob’s Red Mill.
I’m including here a recipe that the National Foundation for
Celiac Awareness posted this week on Facebook. I baked them today, and they’re
pretty darned good, if I say so myself …
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1½
cups brown sugar
1⁄4
cup vegetable shortening
1⁄2
cup vegetable oil
2
eggs or 4 Tbsp. of egg replacer
1½
cups rice flour
1
tsp. gluten-free pure vanilla extract
1
tsp. cinnamon
1
tsp. baking soda
2
cups gluten-free rolled oats
2
cups raisins
Pre-heat
oven to 350°F. In a stand mixer, beat together the first four ingredients. Add
flour, vanilla, cinnamon and baking soda, stirring until smooth. Mix in oats
and raisins until just combined.
Spoon
large tablespoons of dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, spaced
2-3 inches apart.
Bake
10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and serve. Will keep in an airtight
container for up to 10 days.
Note: I used 3/4 C. coconut oil, instead of 1/4 C. vegetable oil and 1/2 C. vegetable shortening.
