Toll House Kookie Brittle (Gluten-Free)

I grew up loving Toll House Kookie Brittle. While it is baking the house smells so good that you can't wait for the cookies to come out of the oven. My Mom always made these for the holidays or whenever we could convince her to make them. Developing a gluten-free version of Toll House Kookie Brittle has been on my wish list ever since my diagnosis.

We belonged to a church outside of Marquette, Michigan, during the early 1960's. The ladies of the church put together their incredible baking prowess and made a cook book. This book is invaluable to me for the variety and number of fine recipes that it contains. I have made many of them and I will endeavor to bake my way through the others. (I mentioned this book in an earlier post on Pumpkin Bread.)

The origin of this recipe was probably the Toll House folks and it made it's way into the church cook book. Since, I'm not sure who originally created it - I salute them all! This is a fine cookie recipe.

The change to gluten free took a couple of test bakes. The first batch turned out to have too much butter and not enough flours. I added kudzu powder to help hold the cookie together. Since this batch was too oily from the butter, I had to go to batch two. In this one I added more flours and I left out the kudzu powder. I wanted to see if the cookies would hold together without the kudzu. Batch two turned out beautifully and they hold together. So, how did I adapt it to be gluten free? Like this...

Recipe (1/2 recipe made in a 8 x 12 pan)

1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup oat flour
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1/3 cup arrowroot flour
3 oz. mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 x 12 pan with parchment paper. Soften the butter.

After the butter is softened, put it in a mixing bowl and cream. Then add the sugar, vanilla and salt. Place all the flours in a bowl and mix. Once the butter mixture is blended slowly add the flour mixture. Once blended take the cookie dough and place it onto the cookie pan.

Then break up the dough into bite sized chunks and spread them around the sheet. Begin to press the cookie dough down with your fingers and cover the entire bottom of the pan with dough. (If the dough sticks to your fingers you can dampen them with a little water.) Sprinkle the top of the dough with the mini chocolate chips, spreading them around with your finger tips. Then lightly press the chips into the dough. Next sprinkle the chopped nuts onto the top of the dough and lightly press in.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. After you remove them from the oven, take a sharp knife and gently score the top of the cookies into standard sizes. Or you can let the pan cool and break the cookie sheet into irregular pieces like candy brittle.

What did my tough critics have to say? My son couldn't stop bouncing around the kitchen asking me, "Are they cool yet?" Once they were cool, he zoomed in for the attack and raced off with two cookies. He came back a minute later and asked if he could have some more. "So? What did you think?" I asked him. He started bouncing up in the air touching his heels together, saying "I like 'em!" Now my daughter (who is now The Toughest Critic in the house) looked at him trying to gain real altitude and said, "Really?" "Yeah!" he replied. She went to get a cookie and bit into it. She sat back down and quietly started chewing. She kept eating. I couldn't take it anymore... I blurted out, "So?" She put her thumb up and said, "Mmmmmm...good." Still airborne, my son said, "Really?" She smiled.

The kid judging was over. Well...except for the dog who very very patiently followed my son around picking up every single crumb that fell on the floor. As I put away a few cookies for my husband to try when he got home, I wondered if there were any clues to be hand in this sibling exchange. Let's see....good food causes my son to go airborne, if brother goes airborne then the food is really good, "I like 'em" is more emphatic than "Umm...their good," less talking and more eating means it better. I guess I could explore the sibling nonverbal signals next.....

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you about the pictures. There are nuts only one half of the cookies - it's the adult & Sheltie side. The chocolate chip only side is for the kids & the Sheltie.