Oh my gosh, chocolate chip cookies chocolate chip cookies CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!! Just thinking about them makes my mind go a little wonky and I’m having a hard time concentrating because shouldn’t I be eating chocolate chip cookies?!?!?

Nourishing Tweens is a participant in the Amazon Affiliate program, an affiliate advertising program that provides a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. I only recommend things that I truly like and would use myself. If you click through my links and make a purchase, there is no additional charge to you. 

Alright, chocolate chip cookies are my favorite. To be more specific, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are my favorite. Wait, oatmeal chocolate chip with butterscotch chips and walnuts. THOSE are my favorite. So that is what I made here. But you can adjust them how YOU want them to be – maybe without the nuts (what, are you crazy?!? Just kidding – I won’t judge) or maybe you want peanut butter chips instead of butterscotch chips…yes, that would be good…or maybe you want to just double the chocolate chips because CHOCOLATE.

And, as I’ve talked about in my other recipes, I am always on the hunt for the most delicious gluten-free recipes to please my picky girl who LOVES her carbs but gets stomach aches when she eats too much gluten. I’ve tried a few different gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipes. They were all tasty, but the first few recipes I tried were very crumbly. Yummy, but messy. My daughter took some to school to share with her friends at lunchtime and they were a pile of crumbs when she took them out of her lunch box. Bummer. And not helpful when you are trying to help your child feel like she’s not missing out. These gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are so good that her friends don’t know they’re gluten-free.

So how do you make them less crumbly? Drum roll please…xanthan gum! What is xanthan gum, you ask? According to my bag of Bob’s Red Mill brand, “xanthan gum is made from the outer layer of a tiny, inactive bacterium called Xanthomonas campestris. It is an excellent all-purpose thickener… (and) ideal substitute for gluten in gluten-free baking.” If you can’t find xanthan gum at the store, you can order it online. You can also choose to leave it out, which will make your cookies more crumbly, but they will still be tasty.

The main ingredient in my cookies is oat flour, because I love the taste of oats and I think it is the most similar-tasting flour to regular wheat flour. My daughter is tired of everything gluten-free tasting like rice, so I didn’t want to use rice flour like so many store-bought gluten-free products. A lot of gluten-free products also rely on tapioca flour, potato starch, and corn starch. I feel like these aren’t the healthiest choices. I don’t know if oat flour has more nutrients, but it seems like a more natural choice to me, especially since it is whole-grain. If you can’t find oat flour, you can grind oats in a food processor and that works okay, too. However it is not as finely ground as what you buy prepackaged, so it will change the texture of the cookies slightly.

Making the cookies is easy. I like to use a standing mixer – I have my mom’s old mixer – the same one I used to make cookies when I was a kid! It’s a KitchenAid and still works great. If you don’t have one, it is definitely worth getting one. Mine is going on 40 years old and works perfectly! You also could use a hand mixer, or if you are old school – do it with a wooden spoon. The rest of us are impressed. But that’s how the pioneers did it, right? Think of the calories you’ll burn before eating those cookies.

First mix the sugars and the butter together to form a grainy paste. It’s key to let the butter sit out for a bit and soften before you start. DO NOT melt it in the microwave- that will make your cookies greasy. Here’s how you want the mixture to look:

Next, add in the eggs and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. That will really help the cookies have a great texture.

Save up to 45% off MSRP on select countertop appliances

In a separate bowl, combine your dry ingredients. When you bake with oat flour, it’s important to break up the lumps. I use a fork to do this.

Add in the oats, and then add the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Mix on low, and add in the walnuts, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips.

EAT.

Okay, I’m not supposed to tell you to eat raw cookie dough. I’m supposed to tell you to be cautious and not consume raw eggs. I’m not supposed to tell you that my kids and I eat as much raw cookie dough as we can fit in our mouths. So I won’t tell you that.

Luckily, it is also good cooked.

Now, be careful not to overdo it with the size of your cookies. I like to make my cookies nice and big. But for these gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, the dough tends to spread more as it bakes tha other chocolate chip cookies do. So make them kind of small, and make them not too close together. One of the other recipes I tried recommended refrigerating the dough for a bit at this point, which I’m guessing was to help limit the spreading of the oat flour mixture. Well, I’m not that patient. And there is a significant danger that my kids and I would eat all the cookie dough before the time was up. Not that we would do that. We are super cautious about the raw egg thing.

Bake them at 300 degrees (yes, lower than the usual recommendation). Check them after about 16 minutes. You want them to be a nice golden brown, but not too crunchy.

ENJOY!!! Comment below and let me know what you think. What other foods would you like me to make gluten-free?

Check out my Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins, too! They are also deliciously gluten-free.