Let's start with Chocolate Chip Cookies.....!

I was born and raised in the UK and only came to the US in my early thirties.  On my first trip I spent a lot of time in the local grocery store.  Why?  Because I had never seen anything like it in my life.  In the UK in the late seventies, grocery stores were still tiny and local.  They sold only dry goods, cans and the like.  If you wanted produce you went to the greengrocers.  If you wanted meat, you went to the butcher's.  If you wanted a prescription filled, you went to the drugstore or "chemist" as it is called over there.  To find everything - and lots of it - in one store was amazing to me.  I was fascinated and it kept me entertained for hours as I poured over every aisle from cereal to shampoo.

The best aisle however, was the cookies!  In the UK these items are called biscuits.  There are many varieties but they all have something in common - they are crisp and crunchy.  I wasn't familiar with American cookies so I purchased my first box of chocolate chip ones and took them home.  I bit into the first one with great expectations.  Ugh - it was soft and chewy.  I thought I had got a stale box.  I was ready to march it back to the store but before I did, I happened to mention it to someone.  It was then I learned that the perfect chocolate chip cookie is maybe a little crisp on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside.  What a revelation!  I revised my view of what a cookie - or biscuit - should be and embarked on a romance with chocolate chip cookies.

Forward to 2010 and my new gluten soy free path.  Oh my goodness!  What was I to do about the Chocolate Chip Cookie Problem?  I couldn't do store bought anymore.  Even the gluten free ones were not soy free (I'll talk about the lecithin and margarine issues in later posts) so there was only one answer.  Make them myself.

Baking gluten and soy free presents many challenges (also topics for future posts) but I was determined to conquer the Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge.  I set to work.  After several false starts using special gluten free recipes found on the Web, I went back to the original Tollhouse recipe found on the back of the chocolate chip package.  Could I adapt this successfully?  I'd try.

I substituted for the butter and the peanut butter (I prefer almond) and the flour, put the results in the oven and held my breath.  Ting!  I opened the oven door.  They looked perfect, but how would they taste?  They were wonderful!!  In fact, my husband - who does not have to eat gluten or soy free - declared them the best he had ever tasted.

In later posts, I will write about the substitute ingredients that I use in baking, but for now, sufficient to say that, after conquering the Chocolate Chip Cookie Problem, I no longer have any fears or worries about eating gluten and soy free.  I truly believe I don't have to go without anything as long as I am prepared to do a little work and research.

And nor do you.......