This wheat free vegan cookie is kind of experimental, so bake it at your own risk. I had good results the first time I made them, but I haven’t gone back for more testing.
Wheat Free Vegan Oatmeal-Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
3/4 cup oats
1/4 cup rice flour (I used white) — maybe try with a gluten free blend?
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons applesauce
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup extra crunchy peanut butter (generous) – 2 ½ oz by weight — doesn’t
1/3 cup chopped up semi-sweet chocolate or vegan chips
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Grind oats in processor. Add rice flour, baking soda and salt and pulse to mix.
Stir oil and both sugars together in a medium bowl. It’s okay to do this with a spoon – no need to pull out the electric mixer. Beat in applesauce, peanut butter and vanilla. Add rice flour/oat mixture and stir until blended. Stir in chocolate chunks.
Using about 2 tablespoons of dough, form dough into balls and place on ungreased baking sheet. Flatten slightly. Bake until edges are golden brown, about 11-12 minutes (the longer, the crunchier the edges). Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.
Makes about 6 cookies
Anna says
April 23, 2012 at 4:28 pmHi Heather,
I think the peanut butter is a pretty key element here, but you could always experiment!
Heather H says
April 23, 2012 at 1:33 pmHello,
I recently found your website and am hoping to adapt this & a few other dessert recipes to meet the dietary requirements of a bride-to-be! My goal is no nuts wheat or dairy. Can this recipe be made by omitting the peanut butter without any changes? Is there another substitution I should use to account for the change in fat content?
Glory says
July 1, 2011 at 10:09 amThanks for the inspiration. I have been making an off shoot of this recipe for a while. I add flax and sometimes chia seeds and have used many alternative sweeteners such as agave, honey, maple and stevia to avoid using sugar and people love them. I used the malt sweetened chocolate chips and often freshly ground peanut butter. Brown rice flour has worked great for me too.
Julie Hasson says
August 19, 2008 at 9:03 pmThanks Anna. I will test them out really soon with the brown rice flour and let you know how they work. I have a HUGE bag of the brown rice flour, which is why I asked.
Thanks again!
Julie
Anna says
August 17, 2008 at 7:31 pmHi Julie,
I don’t see why brown rice flour wouldn’t work as well as white. Don’t both flours weigh the same? The taste might be a little different, but I just don’t know. I hope you give it a try. Maybe you could test with both?
Julie Hasson says
August 17, 2008 at 7:23 pmThanks for the recipe Anna. These look fabulous!
How do you think they would be if I used brown rice flour instead of white?
Sarah says
August 13, 2008 at 3:19 pmI love this recipe! Every vegan dessert I’ve tried making so far (in my limited experience) ended up tasting horrible, but these were great! I substituted wheat flour for the rice flour since I didn’t have any. Thank you!
Danielle says
August 5, 2008 at 1:04 pmThese were delish! I don’t have any allergies but the fact that they didn’t have eggs or butter enticed me. I didn’t have crunchy peanut butter, so I used regular and threw in some sliced almonds. I also used a blueberry applesauce and I LOVED the cookies! I actually made them 2 nights in a row so my husband and I could have them piping hot. Thanks!
atxvegn says
August 3, 2008 at 3:19 pmHi, Anna. These cookies are fabulous! I can only imagine how much more fabulous they would be if I had remembered to add the peanuts. Thank you, thank you for this recipe.
atxvegn says
August 2, 2008 at 8:02 pmThanks for this recipe Anna! You did my work for me. I do have xantham gum so I may put in a pinch to see if it helps them stay together better.
Apparently Ghirardeli AND Guittard are no longer vegan. Many dark chocolates are though and I know Tropical Source dark chocolate chips are vegan. I get mine at HEB.
Sue says
August 2, 2008 at 7:25 pmHi Anna!
So far it’s been easier than I would have thought, and has made a HUGE difference. There are a number of wheat things that I haven’t eaten in a long time because I knew they were causing problems, so getting rid of the rest wasn’t so difficult. I still bake some for my husband and son, but I’m finding it’s not at all difficult to leave gluten laced products alone now that I know how much better I feel without them.
Here’s a link to the Pamela’s Pancake and Baking Mix that I used. http://www.pamelasproducts.com/Products_frames.html
It has potato starch in it, but not potato flour. I tasted another bit of cookie without chocolate chips in it and I think it’s the chocolate chips that I’m tasting. I love the cookie part with the salty peanuts. 🙂
I’ll definitely give the cookies another try. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to try some gluten free baking.
Anna says
August 2, 2008 at 5:14 pmSue, does the baking mix have potato flour? Sometimes that can add a unique flavor — not necessarily bad, just different. The rice flour didn’t have much flavor. Definitely try it with that. I’m curious to hear how your gluten free diet it is going.
Sue says
August 2, 2008 at 4:51 pmI made these today with one major substitution. I used Pamela’s Gluten Free Baking Mix instead of the rice flour, and because it has leaveners in it (and xanthum gum) I skipped the baking soda altogether. My son really likes them. I think they’re good, but I think I’ll try them soon with the rice flour instead of the baking mix. Something was giving them a sort of “off” flavor for me. Maybe it was too much vanilla (my mistake, not your recipe), or maybe it’s the baking mix. They’re my first cookies since going gluten free so I don’t have anything other than my wheat containing recipes to compare to. I used dry roasted salted peanuts and I loved those with peanut buttery sweet dough. I’m tempted to leave out the chocolate entirely and put more peanuts in. That might get too salty though.
Noble Pig says
August 2, 2008 at 12:20 amHey this sounds great and I happen to have all the ingredients…I’m trying this tomorrow.
Lucinda says
August 1, 2008 at 10:04 pmYou can use a gluten-free flour mix too that has less rice flour in it. I’m just not very good at figuring out the ratios of gf flour to regular flour. If you happen to have xantham gum on hand, it’s nice to throw it in for texture. I also found some dough enhancer at a health food store that does a nice job and is less expensive than the xantham gum. I’m looking forward to trying this soon. Thanks.
Janet says
August 1, 2008 at 3:09 pmThanks, I’ll try them. You are right the recipe I used only rice flour. I felt like I was eating hard grains of sand. The flavor was fine, just the texture was off. Appreciate your advice and look forward to trying these soon.
Megan says
August 1, 2008 at 2:25 pmThis is awesome Anna! My neighbors son has to go on a “wheat, dairy, sugar free diet” – so I can substitute Brown Sugar Splenda for the regular sugar.
I’ve used brown rice flour for brownies and they came out quite nice – not gummy or pasty like you might expect. If I’m not mistaken, you recently did a gluten-free brownie. I’m going to check it out and see how they compare.
VeggieGirl says
August 1, 2008 at 2:20 pmYOU MADE THEM WHEAT-FREE TOO?!?!?! Anna, you’re a gem.
Anna says
August 1, 2008 at 1:13 pmGood luck, Sue!
I know what you mean about recipes using gums. CXantham gum is not easy to find and it’s rather expensive. However, if I had a serious wheat allergy, I’d buy it all the time. For now, I’m just trying things that are more basic.
Sue says
August 1, 2008 at 1:01 pmYippee! I have a baking project for the weekend!
Thanks for trying this Anna! I was a little fearful. Some of the gluten free recipes I see call for stuff I haven’t used before like guar gum or xanthum gum? I like it that your recipe doesn’t!
Anna says
August 1, 2008 at 12:57 pmJanet, the only brand I’ve ever used is Bob’s Red Mill. It seems to give things a crumblier texture — not necessarily crunchy. It might have been the brand or the recipe. Usually people mix rice flour with other flours, so maybe the cookies just had too much rice flour.
Also, I think it has a different weight than all purpose flour so you can’t really use it on a cup per cup basis.
Janet says
August 1, 2008 at 12:53 pmHi Anna: Thanks for this recipe! I bought the rice flour and used it in another cookie recipe but it had a real crunchy texture which I did not like. Do you think it was the brand of rice flour (Arrowhead Mills Organic White Rice flour) that I bought or just that texture is normal for rice flour?