Gluten Free New York Cookies!
So what are gluten free New York Cookies?? Well, have you ever been to New York?? If you have, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled across “Levain Bakery” on Trip Advisor. Its a tiny little bakery in Manhattan but even the locals queue around the block for one of their cookies. Why?
- They’re seriously chunky (6oz in fact!!)
- They have the perfect crunchy outside and *super* gooey in the middle.
- They are packed with an INSANE quantity of flavourings – in this recipe I made gluten free chocolate chip cookies with added nuts 😉
Not one to miss out (I swear that is my life motto!), I decided to make my own. It was a labour of love because nothing seemed quite up to scratch but I’m finally there!!! And now I can share it with you 🙂
The Ingredients
Its actually really simple!! You just need 3 bowls:
(1) Butter & Sugar
- Sugar: I’ve used a mix of golden caster sugar and light brown sugar – both of which are easy to get hold of in the supermarket. They produce a caramelly tasting cookie dough and a deep creamy coloured cookie. If you want to replace either of them, you can go for caster sugar or golden granulated. It will change the taste/look very slightly but it’ll still work!
- Butter: You need this type of Stork butter in a foil parcel (says “for biscuits and cookies” on the front – NOT the one for cakes).
(2) Dry Ingredients – try not to leave anything out! The cornflour is an amazing addition for keeping the middle gooey and cakey and just delicious!!!
(3) Flavourings – nuts and choc chips! (I talk more about that in the next section of the blog)
Want to change the walnuts?
I have gone for walnuts because that’s what Levain seems to use in the majority of their cookies… and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”.
If you want to change my walnuts for something else, go for it!! Anything big and chunky will be the perfect replacements – pecans, hazelnuts, that type of thing!
Don’t use broken up nuts/halves. You want the biggest pieces you can get to keep the cookies nice and tall shape whilst they’re cooking.
Want to leave out the nuts
Want just a super yummy gluten free chocolate chip cookies recipe? It will change the cookie but if you’re not a fan of nuts/allergic, the result will still be super yummy.
How do they change? They wont stand as tall – they spread out more. That means the middle will cook more quickly and won’t be quite so gooey.
If you’re happy with that little sacrifice, I recommend replacing the nuts with an extra 100-150g chocolate chips and reduce the cooking time to around 17 mins to preserve a bit of that gooey middle the best you can!
How to Make Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Let’s get cracking with my recipe!! It looks like a lot of steps but that’s only because I’ve got overboard on info as per usual, to make sure you nail it every time 😉
Gluten Free New York Style Cookies
Ingredients
- 220 g Gluten free plain flour
- 115 g Stork Butter - comes in a foil packet and says "for biscuits" on the front – its naturally dairy free
- 65 g Light Brown Sugar
- 65 g Golden Caster Sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- Pinch of Salt
Flavourings
- 150 g choc chips
- 100 g walnuts
Instructions
- Cut the butter into cubes. Place into a large mixing bowl with both types of sugar.
- Whisk until just combined.
- Add the egg and whisk until just combined.
- Add the flour, corn flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk until fully combined. You shouldn't see any little lumps of flour/white dusty bits!
- Add the choc chips & walnuts and mix until its evenly spread throughout the dough. You might need to use a wooden spoon or hands for this, rather than your whisk.
- Take roughly 6oz of the mix, mould into a *rough* ball shape and place on a baking tray/freezer proof dish/plate. Repeat for the rest of the mix. >Don't make perfectly round cookie dough balls. There's a video from the Levain creators on Youtube where you can see them scooping out their cookie dough into balls. One of the ladies says "we don't want perfect cricket balls". Basically, keep them rough and ready!
- Place the balls into the freezer for at least 1 hour. Overnight is preferable.
- Pre-heat your oven to 185oC. Cover a baking tray with tin foil>Don't use baking paper, they cook better with tin foil.
- Place the cookies on the foil and place into the oven for precisely 21 mins! >Cooking time and temperature makes a hugeeeeeeeee difference. Don't play about with it unless you know you've got an oven that is either always too hot or cold!
- Remove from the oven and leave them alone for at least 15 mins to cool before attempting to touch them!>Under NO circumstances should you try to move the cookies from the tray when you've removed them from the oven!!!! They need at least 10-15mins to cool, during which time they will keep cooking. If you try to move them before, they will crumble and the inside will still be raw.
- EAT!!!!
**Looking for another cookie recipe? Here’s some of my faves!**
1 Comments
Vicky
31st July 2021 at 1:32 am
Attempted to make this exactly according to recipe except I froze the cookie dough balls in Tupperware overnight and moved them onto already preheated trays, which in hindsight may have called for a reduced cooking time. Perhaps just don’t do what I did… I ended up with a couple flat-ish cookies, a couple that remained tall and round as I wanted, and some that were a bit flat around the edges but had a tall middle (I had doubled all the quantities in this recipe so I made 8 cookies). The middle part wasn’t exactly gooey, more just soft and a tad doughy (I didn’t eat them immediately after the cooling time though; I brought them to a party). They were quite hard to pick up the cookies because they kept breaking. Do also note I had to use dark brown sugar and standard caster sugar. Another thing- I didn’t use a stand mixer, I used an electric whisk, so maybe I overwhisked the ingredients in the early stages? Idk. So perhaps those changes resulted in the doughier, not so gooey cookies.
I also sprinkled Maldon sea salt flakes onto the dough balls before freezing because I saw on another blog comparing various NY style cookie recipes, that more salt is recommended to balance out the intense sweetness. Next time I will also add more table salt into the dough itself. That blog recommended at least 1/2 tsp salt for a batch (I assume they mean for 8 cookies though, not 4 as in this recipe). Oh and btw if you double the quantities in this recipe, you’ll have enough cookie dough for 9 6oz cookies.
Overall, nice recipe! Made yummy cookies. I’m grateful to have found a food blog by someone who else bakes gluten and dairy free, so that I have recipes to use, and don’t need to alter recipes from scratch LOL (my sister has those dietary requirements). Keep up the good work!