Gluten free cooks need cookie recipes they love. These gluten free chocolate chip cookies with teff are worth finding the teff flour. It goes well with chocolate and mocha flavours so it shines in this recipe. Learn the tricks gluten free cooks know and soon you'll be making cookies everyone wants to eat.
If you've got cookie tasters lined up doing a head-to-head comparison is a fun way to find your favourite cookies. I'd compare this recipe with my first chocolate chip cookie recipe or these chocolate chip cookies with quinoa flour.
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🍪 Ingredients
Teff flour is the perfect addition to recipes with chocolate, cocoa or brown sugar so cookies and brownies are the place to start. A general guide is to include 10 - 20% of teff flour in the total amount for your recipe.
To keep it simple I used 2½ cups of my homemade EGFG gluten free flour blend and then added ⅔ cup of teff flour to get the total amount of flour I needed.
- EGFG gluten free flour blend (sweet rice flour, potato starch, sorghum flour, millet flour)
- teff flour
- baking powder & baking soda
- butter
- white sugar
- brown sugar
- eggs
- vanilla
- chocolate chips
- Optional: hazelnuts
See recipe card for exact amounts.
🍪 Instructions for Gluten Free Cookies
As a cookie lover I wanted to learn all the tips and tricks to adjust for the properties of gluten free flour, specifically for cookies. I share tips as they apply to each cookie in my 17 cookie recipes. Get ready to start baking!
- This non-recipe post is all about Tips for Making Gluten Free Cookies.
- If you like to listen this is my podcast interview with Sue Jennett from A Canadian Celiac Podcast, Baking Gluten Free Cookies episode 43.
🍪 Substitutions
EGFG gluten free flour blend - If you can't use my blend for any reason, keep baking and comparing until you find a blend that works for you. I have made this recipe with this Cookie Flour Blend in place of the EGFG flour blend. I still added the teff flour and the cookies turned out almost exactly the same.
Rice Free - Many gluten free recipes include rice flour so learning to substitute is a project if you avoid rice. Look at this table of 11 gluten free flour recipes. There is only one rice free blend but that's the place to start if you're experimenting.
Dairy Free - Many celiacs need to avoid dairy, especially in that first year, as their gut heals. Vegan buttery sticks work better than soft vegan margarine in cookies. Dairy free chocolate chips can easily be found at health food or specialty stores and large grocery stores.
🎥 Video: How To Use Teff Flour
🍪 Tools for Gluten Free Bakers
If you want to get serious about making amazing gluten free cookies then get the tools you want to make cooking enjoyable. Here's what I suggest:
- Two cookie sheets, unlike baking pans these have no edges.
- Two baking pans, also know as jelly roll pans, with ¼-inch sides all around. I use mine more for cooking but for a cookie baking spree I'm using everything in the cupboard.
- Metal portion scoops - Use these to quickly and efficiently make dough balls, muffins, meatballs and more. Buy a set of three, you'll never regret it.
🍪 Storage
Cookie dough can stay in the fridge for a week and can also be frozen. I highly recommend you shape the dough into balls before freezing. It just makes it easier to bake them right out of the freezer with no adjustment to the cooking time.
🍪 Top Tip for Gluten Free Cookies
Learning is a process that takes time so these are my top tips.
- Take notes, do head-to-head comparisons and enjoy the process.
- Sign up to my email list and get our best resources sent right to your inbox.
- Join my bimonthly cooking class called Understanding How To Use Gluten Free Flour. It's a game changer!
Recipe FAQs
Substituting other gluten free flours for teff flour will give varying results but you can try any of these; sorghum flour, millet flour, tapioca starch, buckwheat flour, quinoa flour, cornmeal or oat flour. This is a learning process so take good notes and have fun. It will involve a lot of cookies and I wish I was there to help taste them all with you.
Teff is an ancient grain popular in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Flour ground from teff is most widely known for making injera, a fermented pancake-like flatbread. It's gluten free and readily available wherever gluten free flours are sold.
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies with Teff
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2½ cups EGFG gluten free flour blend* (325 g)
- ⅔ cup teff flour (70 g)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter room temperature
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups chocolate chips
- ½ cup chopped hazelnuts optional
Instructions
- In medium bowl whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In large bowl of a stand mixer on high speed cream butter until smooth.
- Add both sugars and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add eggs and vanilla, beat until smooth.
- Add flour mixture until combined evenly.
- Add chocolate chips and nuts (if using). Beat until combined.
- Cover and refrigerate letting cookie dough rest for 30 minutes or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Make dough balls using a small portion scoop. My preference is the 1½ tablespoon size.
- Place cookies on a cookie sheet at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 11-13 minutes until golden brown and the edges are set.
- Cool cookies on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes then transfer to a wire rack. Cool completely before storing.
- Store in air tight containers for maximum freshness.
Notes
Nutrition
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New here? I'll help to get you from overwhelmed and frustrated to confident and cooking gluten free food everyone wants to eat, as quickly as possible. Start with these 29 Tips for cooking with GF flour.
🎉 Exciting news! Cooking classes are back and Adventures in a Gluten Free Kitchen, a membership, is coming soon. Join the waitlist!
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Eileen
Made these today, minus the nuts. Probably the best gluten free cookies that I have had. Will try adding gf oats next time, in place of nuts. . Thank you for the recipe.
Cinde Little
Your welcome Eileen, thanks for letting me know. I never use the hazelnuts, I just added them to make the recipe a bit different from my first chocolate chip cookie. (At the time it made sense.) You could replace some of the flour with oat flour rather than adding oats. Experiment and let me know what you learn. I'm crazy about chocolate chip cookies.
Karen Saville
I finally made these: followed your directions exactly. They are wonderful!
Cinde Little
I'm happy to hear that Karen! From one cookie lover to another, thanks for letting me know.
Slaght, Sue
Cinde although I used your pre-made dough, I can attest that once baked they were gratefully received by two of my friends. We had a couple of cookies ourselves which were delicious!
Cinde Little
That's great to hear Sue, thanks for letting me know! I too continue to taste them just to make sure. 🙂
Shelley Zingerella
I found these cookies to be crunchy and full of good flavor. Used Bob's Red Mill, oatmeal flour and the Teff. I only baked a dozen for starters. They didn't flatten much. Next dozen, I pre-squoosed them, and lowered the oven temp to 325. They are perfect. I love chocolate chip cookies, and am very happy with the look, taste, and texture of these.
Cinde Little
Hi Shelley, that's great to hear! I've used oat flour in many baked goods with success. I love that you just baked 12 first, made adjustments and improved. Sounds like you've got a recipe worth repeating. Now, if I could just get my hands on one of those cookies! 🙂
Shelley Zingerella
Hi Cinde, I also made your banana muffins next. They were wonderful. Thanks you for your help in learning about these flours.
Cinde Little
That's great Shelley! You'll have to try the Banana Muffins and substitute some of the flour called for in that recipe with teff flour. It goes good with chocolate so a handful of chocolate chips might be nice too. I'm happy to hear you're learning about all the flours.
Shelley Zingerella
I did that, Cinde, with the Teff. Really liked it. Making the cookies again this evening. Nice flavor.
Cinde Little
Awesome Shelley, now you've inspired me to make these cookies again. I must have been thinking about the other chocolate chip cookie...excuse my COVID brain. 🙂
Gwen
I made these cookies today following your recipe and your recipe for the flour blend and I left the dough in fridge to rest for a few hours. When I baked them they came out really thin, almost see through.
I noticed there is no xanthan gum in the recipe and wondering if there was supposed to be?
Can you give me any ideas as to why they came out so thin?
Cinde Little
Hi Gwen! There are lots of ways for cookies to go wrong. Xanthan helps with structure so I don't think that would be the problem here. These are 3 things to consider. First I look at the flour. You said you used my EGFG blend, just make sure it was with SWEET rice flour and not regular WHITE rice flour. GF flours don't absorb fat and liquid the way wheat flour does but the addition of teff flour to my EGFG blend made this recipe work for me. I never came back to try these cookies using my Cookie Flour Blend but I might do that to see what I learn. Second, did you use butter? I've never noticed a difference with any specific brand of butter but margarine will not work as well and cause cookies to spread. Third, the temperatures. Oven temperatures vary quite a bit, all you can do is really pay attention to all the things you make and know your oven. The dough balls could be colder, or even frozen, and shouldn't be pushed down before baking. Sometimes putting the second batch of dough balls right onto a pan that just came out of the oven can cause cookies to spread more. That wouldn't affect the whole batch of cookies but just another small thing to look for. Best of luck and let me know what you think. I just bought more teff flour for making pizza dough so I'll make these next weekend and report back.
Gwen
Yes I used sweet rice flour and I used butter as well, I didn't flatten them, just used to small ice cream/cookie dough scoop. I only used enough of the dough to make a dozen cookies, so I'll try making the cookie balls and cooling them before baking and see if that makes a difference.
Cinde Little
Hi Gwen! Gluten free cookies can be frustrating, I've had my share of failures. The only other suggestion I have is to try cooking the dough balls right from frozen. I usually think I can't tell the difference between the dough balls from the fridge and the ones from the freezer...but I keep doing it just in case I learn something. I put them right on the same cookie sheet so there are no other variables. Good luck!
Gwen
So I froze the cookie dough balls for a few hours in my deep freeze and quickly baked them in my hot oven with an oven thermometer that registered 350, they still spread and were quit thin but not as bad as the frist try.
They are really good tasting cookies so I'd like to make them again, so I'm wondering if adding a little more flour would help for the next time if they are still spreading and getting too thin?
Thanks for sharing your recipes,
Cinde Little
Hi Gwen! To deal with the overspreading of cookies America's Test Kitchen recommends decreasing the fat, melting the butter or trying an alternative like oil; all rather than increasing the flour. I'd decrease the butter by 2 Tbsp in this recipe. I tried melted butter in this other recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies. It was pretty good but this recipe with teff flour is not as greasy and I like it better. Because gluten free flour doesn't absorb liquid or fat as well as wheat flour adding flour may not solve the problem. However, I'd certainly add 2 Tbsp more of flour and you're going to have a lot of chocolate chip cookies to taste and compare.
RACHEL
Hi There,
at which step do you add the flour to the butter sugar mix?
Cinde Little
Hi Rachel! Thanks for pointing out that mistake. I've fixed the recipe now but you add the flour after the eggs. I hope your cookies turn out!