Chocolate Cookies (low dairy, low gluten)

The low-dairy brownies were popular, but I wanted a more biscuit-y snack with some crunch to it. As always, I ignored the advice of a fellow Aldershot resident "why don't you just follow a recipe this time?" and did my own thing. I mean, what's the fun in just copying someone else's work? I like to live life on the edge.

Ingredients

2 mugs oat flour (any other flour probably good too)
1 mug rice flour
1 mug date sugar (or brown sugar if that is what you have)
0.75 mug vegetable oil
2 bars (or 200g) dark chocolate

What To Do

Melt the chocolate - start this first as it takes a few minutes. It is best to put a glass bowl in a pan with water and heat the pan on the cooker with the chocolate in the bowl. This gently heats the chocolate. The bottom of the glass should be resting in the water. Don't try to melt chocolate in the microwave - it usually ends in tears.

Stir in the oat and rice flours together in a large bowl. Now stir in the date sugar, then finally oil and the melted chocolate. It is quite difficult to mix, so it is best to use a food mixer at this point to get a smooth mixture.

Now get two large baking trays and put grease-proof/oven paper on them and use a small spoon to create a biscuit blob many times on the trays.

Cooking

Heat the oven up to 180C. Cook for 12 minutes max - this cooks quicker than brownies and any longer may burn them.

Storage

I have not put these in the fridge, they seem to be fine in a biscuit tin or box.


Brownies (low gluten, low dairy)

My last attempt at a healthy cake was labelled "joyless" but this one got an enthusiastic thumbs up, so worth a try...

Ingredients

2 mugs oat flour (any other flour probably good too)
1 mug porridge oats
1 mug brown sugar (or golden syrup or other sweetener)
1 mug water
Half mug vegetable oil or vegan butter
2 bars (or 200g) dark chocolate
Optional: chopped nuts

What To Do

Melt the chocolate - start this first as it takes a few minutes. It is best to put a glass bowl in a pan with water and heat the pan on the cooker with the chocolate in the bowl. This gently heats the chocolate. The bottom of the glass should be resting in the water. Melting chocolate in the microwave usually ends in tears.

In another bowl, mix the oats, flour and water together. Now stir in the sugar/syrup. Mix well. Next, add in the oil/vegan butter (if you use butter, the butter should be melted) and mix well again.

The chocolate should be melted by now, so pour the chocolate in and stir. If you want to add chopped nuts, stir them in too.

The mixture should be fairly runny.

Cooking

Heat the oven up to 180C. Pour the mixture into a ceramic baking dish - mine is 25 x 18cm (10 x 7 inches). Cook for 20 to 25 minutes, depending how soft you like your brownies (I went for the 20 minutes option).

Storage

Probably best stored in the fridge, but should stay good for several days even at room temperature.