As Needed Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Get out all your ingredients. I like to mix my flax meal first so it has time to gel. You can mix the EnerG egg replacer too and set aside. Sift the flours into a medium-sized bowl. Add the xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter sticks, shortening and sugars. Add the EnerG egg replacer and flax meal; mix until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and stir to combine.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, about 1/2 cup at a time. Mix briefly after each addition. When all the dry ingredients have been incorporated, stir in the chocolate chips. The dough should be nice and thick.

At this point, I recommend refrigerating the dough for about an hour before baking. This helps the cookies stay nice and fluffy and helps prevent them from spreading while baking. When you are ready to bake them, put what you want on a parchment covered cookie sheet, and put the rest of the dough in the freezer. (The dough freezes extremely well. Now, when your next craving hits, you can simply take the dough out of the freezer, let it sit on the counter for about an hour, spoon out what you want and put the rest back in the freezer! Hence the name: As Needed Chocolate Chip Cookies…you don’t want these gems, you NEED them!)

Bake on a parchment-covered cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. VERY IMPORTANT – do not over bake these! Prior to putting them in the oven, make sure the oven is thoroughly preheated, and take them out right at 10 minutes (they will look at bit underdone, but trust me – take them out).

Let them cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes and the rest of the way on a cooling rack. If you have any left over, put them in an air-tight container while they are still ever-so-slightly warm. This will help them stay softer longer.

Enjoy!