Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chai Spice Cookies

Here is another recipe reworked for those who can't have gluten or dairy. I recently attended an Epicure party and fell in love with the Chai Spice. I knew right away that I wanted to use it to make cookies. My six-year-old loves these cookies without the powdered sugar coating.

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chai Spice Cookies
Adapted from this recipe for Chai-Spice Cookies

Prep time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 15 minutes
Yield: ~ 36 teaspoon-sized cookies

These cookies contain:

vegan butter (oils of palm fruit, canola, olive, soy, flax), coconut palm sugar, gluten-free flour blend (brown rice, tapioca, arrowroot and sorghum flours, xanthan gum), soy, spices and salt

These cookies do not contain: 
gluten, dairy, or white/brown processed sugar (unless coated in powdered sugar)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegan butter, softened (I like Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks)
• 1/2 cup coconut palm sugar (I like Pure Palm Organic Coconut Palm Sugar)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum (I like Namaste Perfect Flour Blend)
• 4 1/2 teaspoons chai spice (I like Epicure's Chai Spice blend, but you can create your own blend using spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and allspice)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• powdered sugar, sifted (optional)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F
• Beat vegan butter with coconut palm sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl or mixer until well blended. Stir in the gluten-free flour blend, chai spice and salt until just combined.
• Scoop and roll dough into small teaspoon-sized balls and place about an inch apart on two large baking sheets lined with parchment paper or silicone mats. Bake until lightly golden, approximately 15 minutes. Do not overcook or they will be too dry.
• If desired, roll warm cookies in powdered sugar. Let cookies cool completely on a rack.
• Store in an airtight container. These cookies freeze well.

Admittedly, these cookies do taste best rolled in powdered sugar, but I love them without as well. They would work just as well with Xylitol instead of coconut palm sugar if an even lower-glycemic sugar substitute is desired (click here to view the glycemic indexes of various sweeteners).

I hope you enjoy these lightly sweetened, deliciously spicy cookies. I'm having one with peppermint tea right now!

Sue

I'm linked up with:

Response to "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?" by Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue Magazine, September 27, 2013

In the article, "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?", the author outlines his views on gluten and those who avoid eating it. It's worth a read since it represents views I have heard expressed by others. A caution though: If you have any sort of food intolerance or dietary restrictions (particularly gluten or lactose), it may irritate you at least as much as the author is irritated by those who avoid gluten.

You can access the article here:
http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/is-true-happiness-possible-without-gluten/#1

Here is my response to the author of this article:

That last phrase, "who am I to judge?", is interesting and exactly what I kept wondering the entire time I read your article, Jeffrey. Who are you to make such bold and ill-informed statements about both gluten intolerance (as well as lactose intolerance) and gluten-free food? I had to 'Google' you to learn that you are the Vogue food critic and have been for some time. I assume that is why you feel you are in a position to judge such things as the eating habits, preferences and dietary requirements of others. The last phrase is interesting because you do nothing BUT judge those who choose not to consume gluten for whatever reason. 

The article was well-written, yet, despite your attempts, not well enough researched. You have not sampled enough gluten-free food to state that, "If you can’t eat gluten, then you can’t eat" the excessively lengthy list of food items you provided. That's simply not true. I have eaten and prepared extremely tasty gluten-free versions of most if not all of the things you listed. While you did as good a job as most people - which does not say much - of describing celiac disease and it's relationship to gluten, you make it clear that you are not well-informed about the seriousness of either lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance. 

I'm not going to go into the data that supports the avoidance of gluten for a very large group of people with ailments outside of the two you acknowledge (celiac disease and IBS). These are things you should have investigated prior to writing this article, but it is clear why you did not. It is clear that you did not intend to present an informed investigative report. Your intention was to complain about a group of people that irritate you. 

You finally - after doing much damage by labelling anyone who avoids gluten (and does not meet your narrow criteria) "food phobics" - acknowledge that the science does not agree with your view. Yet, you go on to include yet another population of people who may fake being gluten intolerant and close your article on that note as if to lend support to your close-minded view that gluten is good, healthy and even holy (unbelievable), while gluten avoiders are nothing but a bunch of annoying posers (excepting, of course, the population to whom you so graciously offered your respect - those with celiac disease). 

This is a witty article, and if I too was easily annoyed by other people's dietary choices I might have found parts of it amusing. 

In answer to the question posed by your article's title, "Is True Happiness Possible Without Gluten?", I suggest that for you the answer is clearly a resounding, No. You are not, however, in a position to judge (as you yourself acknowledge in your last phrase) whether this is true for others. A better title for this article would have been, "Why I people who don't eat gluten annoy me."

What do you think?

Should the author have done a little more research?  

Do you agree with me that he ought to live and let live? 

Do you agree with the author? 

Is anyone else hungry after all of this food talk?

Things are going to be a little different around here.

It all started early one morning with a scream. “Mommy! Mommy! My belly hurts! Mommy!” Two hours later when his stomach and bowels were empty, and I was exhausted from repeatedly hauling his 45 pound body back and forth between bedroom and bathroom, he crawled back into bed worn out and slept.

The flu? Interesting that I didn’t get it. I get everything!

When he awoke he was better, and his bodily functions were normal.

This scene repeated itself another six or seven times over the following three months. Sometime in the middle of that period, I started to wonder... These can’t all be the result of multiple flus. He recovers quickly. Sometimes it comes back days later and sometimes it’s a month. I’m not getting sick, and I get everything!

There were several visits to our GP, numerous visits to the hospital, one of them in an ambulance, a referral to a pediatrician and finally a blood test that confirmed my fears.