Teff Cookie Hoarding!

Today’s guest post is brought to you by the letter C and Monika! To learn more about today’s guest blogger, please check out her blogs Chew on This! and Windy City Vegan.

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Happy Vegan Month of Food, everybody! Can you believe it’s day 4 already? I have yet to get a MoFo post up on my own blog, but today I’m over the moon to share one of my favorite xGFx recipes with you, maple flax thumbprint cookies. This was one of my favorite vegan recipes back when I was cutting out wheat, but not gluten. The original recipe, by Jae Steele in her amazing cookbook Get It Ripe, used spelt flour. I’m happy to report that with a little xanthan gum you can make this recipe with pretty much any flour. When I have random amounts of gluten free flours that need to be used up, I whip up a batch of these cookies lickety split.

Not only are they a great way to utilize different flours, but they have only a handful of ingredients, come together in less time than it takes to preheat the oven, and they are Picky Eating Child Approved. Also, Skeptical Not Quite a Vegan Significant Other Approved. Two very important demographics, n’est-ce pas?

Maple Flax Thumbprint Cookies

Adapted from Jae Steele’s Get It Ripe

Makes approx. 25 cookies, thumbprints optional

• 1 cup teff flour*
• 1 cup sweet rice flour*
• ¼ cup flax seeds
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ cup sunflower or olive oil
• ½ maple syrup
• ½ – 1 teaspoon xanthan gum**
• ¼ cup water

*Any combination of flours will work, as long as they equal two cups. I try to use at least two flours. P.S., this is a GREAT way to use up that unfortunate bag of Arrowhead Mills brown rice flour that you bought, despite all warnings to the contrary.

**I’m sure that using another sort of binding ingredient would work here (mashed banana, flax goop), but I like the way it turns out with the xanthan gum, so I’ve never tried anything else. Keep in mind that the gum helps not only with binding and texture, but also with moisture retention.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.
2. Combine dry ingredients together EXCLUDING the xanthan gum.
3. Add the oil and maple syrup, and mix until fully incorporated. Your cookie dough will have the consistency of barely-wet sand.
4. Squeeze a small handful of cookie dough in your hand; how crumbly it is will determine how much (if any) xanthan gum you need to add.  If your dough will not stick together, sprinkle the xanthan gum into the bowl and then mix into the dough. (Trust me, there is not enough moisture present to suck up the xanthan gum, as long as you sprinkle it over the full surface area.)
5. Add the water and mix thoroughly, and behold the amazing power of xanthan gum! Not only does it instantly give your dough the texture of its gluten-riddled doppelganger, it also significantly changes the mouth feel, no matter how grainy your flour was.
6. Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and press gently into a disk. If you are so inclined, you may make a thumbprint in the middle. HINT: this is a great task to give to a Child Helper.
7. Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool completely before eating.

I have no idea how long these keep – we always polish them off inside of 48 hours! But a week in an airtight container sounds about right. Right?