Chewy CSID-Friendly Cookies

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is intended to bea reduced-starch/starch-free/sucrose-free recipe.
These cookies are NOT low-calorie, sugar-free, or gluten-free.
Please use caution when adding a new food to a special or restricted diet.

Hello again recipe seekers. I am very glad that you have decided to join me today as I have a great recipe to share with you—CSID-Friendly COCONUT FLOUR COOKIES. Before you scoff and hit the back button on your browser in disgust at yet another failed cookie recipe, give me a minute to explain.

Way back in January of 2013 my oldest son was diagnosed with CSID, which is a genetic disorder which prevents his body from producing the enzymes needed to break down sucrose (table sugar) and maltose (a major component of all starch). Think of it like lactose-intolerance for sugar and starch. A few months later my second son received the same diagnosis. Over the past almost three years we have managed to recreate many "normal" foods in a CSID-friendly fashion, but I hadn't yet really been able to make a really good cookie recipe for them. This was somewhat of a sour point with me as I worked for two years developing cookie recipes for Lofthouse Cookies.

True, there are many recipes for cookies which do not use wheat flour as their base, and there are even some for cookies which don't use any grains. Meringues come to mind, as do one of my favorite Christmas cookies—Zimtsterne. While both of these cookies are delicious, they are a pain in the rear to make, and they don't really work for the good old American staple, chocolate chip cookies. My wife has searched on and off for a good CSID-friendly cookie recipe, and has found some based on coconut flour, but the cookies they yielded didn't really work for me. They were often dry and crumbly, and I wanted something soft, moist, and chewy.

Then one Saturday I was suddenly hit with inspiration, and I knew how to solve my problem. Chocolate chip cookies are sweet (a no brainer, just add a sweetner), but also chewy, which is brought about by a combination of hygroscopic properties of brown sugar and the protein network created by the gluten found in flour. My revelation was that I could replicate both of these by using agave syrup and vital wheat gluten. The bulking of wheat flour was replaced by almond flour, and the moisture absorption was accomplished with coconut flour. Further structure comes from two eggs instead of the usual one. My go-to replacement for sugar, dextrose, isn't sweet enough to use by itself, so I split the amount 50/50 with fructose. And just like that, a cookie was born.

What was a little suprising for me was that these cookies were actually really good. If you didn't tell me before hand that they were developed to be a CSID-friendly cookie, I probably wouldn't have known. They are delicately coconutty, delightfully chewy, and deliciously moist. These would be a good base for frosting, ice cream sandwiches, or eating with milk. Enjoy!

Peanut Buttery Chocolate Buns

I really don't know what to say about this recipe because I can only say delicious so many times. These buns are truly, completely, and amazingly delicious.

The idea from this recipe came from wanting to create, of all things, peanut butter and jelly bread. I found lots of recipes online for peanut butter quick breads, and for buns made from rolling out regular dough and spreading it with peanut butter and jelly before rolling it up again. They looked good, but seemed really messy, and I have never considered quick breads to be a true bread, but rather a kind of cake. I wanted sliceable sandwich bread with peanut butter in the dough. Once again, I had to make up my own recipe. Oh darn. (^_^)

I made a loaf, and found it to be tasty, and I immediately starting thinking of the possibilities. Then I saw an episode of Cook's Country where they made cinnamon buns, and the idea for this recipe just came together.

Basically, this is a basic sweet roll dough with peanut butter replacing the fat in the dough. I had to take out some of the flour as well to make up for the solids in the peanut butter, but more on that later. The filling is your typical cinnamon roll filling except you replace the cinnamon with cocoa powder. Instead of cream cheese filling I decided to go with a chocolate donut glaze to complete the recipe.

The flavor is intensely peanut buttery, with chocolate permeating the entire bun. If you are fan of peanut butter filled chocolate cups, you will absolutely love this recipe. Just make sure you invite some friends over or you will end up eating the entire batch by yourself.

The BEST Low-Carb Bread EVER!!!

Updated 3/9/2016 to include pictures of pizza made with this dough as the crust.

I have finally posted the tutorial for this recipe. To be honest, this is the longest I have ever worked on a recipe, and I only got it where I think I want it about a month ago. As you can guess by the title of this post, the following recipe is for low-carb bread.

My quest for a good recipe for low-carb bread started two and a half years ago when my two oldest sons were diagnosed with CSID (congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency). This disease creates, in very short terms, starch and sugar intolerance. After I got over the initial period of shock and decided to start making recipes—some of which are on this blog—I realized that a really good bread would be hard to find.
The main reason for this is that bread is mostly made up of wheat flour, which is about 75% starch, which is a big no-no for my kids. Low-carb breads, for the most part, rely on almond flour or coconut flour, and wind up more like quick breads or cakes than fluffy white bread. My goal was to find/write a recipe for bread which fit the following criteria:

1. Would be low in digestible carbohydrates.
2. Would have a bite & chew similar to that of "regular" bread.
3. Would be made of easy-to-purchase ingredients.
4. Would be leavened by yeast fermentation.
5. Looked, smelled, and tasted good.
6. Could be used in all applications like wheat bread.

I scoured the internet for recipes, and even tried a few out, but I wasn't ever really happy with what I found. There were some common elements to all of the recipes, so I decided to use those to create my own recipe.

Coconut flour waffles revisited..and now pancakes!

Wow! When I posted my recipe for coconut flour waffles on this blog almost exactly two years ago, I had no idea what type of reception it would get. To date, that recipe has been viewed over 20,000 times, and has been (re)pinned on Pinterest more than 6000 times.

I have had a few comments on it though which made me look at the recipe again. It is also time for a confession regarding that recipe—I don't really like it. Don't get me wrong though. For a 100% gluten free, very low-carb waffle recipe, it isn't bad. Obviously people have been looking at it, and I would wager that some have even tried it successfully. But I don't use that recipe any more.

The journey for a really, really good recipe for a waffle/pancake began because of CSID, a genetic enzyme deficiency which equates to sugar/starch intolerance. My two older sons have this deficiency, but for some reason, they still want to have breakfast in the morning.

Anyway, I wasn't happy with the texture of the waffles produced by my original recipe. They fell apart a little too easily and didn't reheat well in a toaster. So, I figured I could use my food science savvy to engineer a slightly better option. The result you see before you.

And yes, I do realize that the pictures in this post are for pancakes. There's a very good reason.
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Alright, fine. I just wasn't making waffles the day I took these pictures. But I promise it started out as a waffle recipe. The information below still applies in any case.

An important note for those with CSID or who are making food for those with CSID—this recipe does contain starch. If you(or your CSID patient) cannot tolerate starch please exercise caution before consuming food made from this recipe.

Not gone yet. Short update.

Since I am really very bad about apologizing for not having written for an exceedingly long time, I'm not going to even try.

Instead, I am going to write a very short post to pretty much say that (get off my computer, cat) I am going to make a concerted effort to regularly post on this blog. It has really been a crazy couple of years (can't believe it's been that long since I have posted), and I'm hoping that life will settle down again soon.

In the future the recipes I post will be divided into two main categories: CSID-friendly recipes which my two boys enjoy, and non-CSID-friendly recipes which my wife and I enjoy. For the recipes which fall into the second category, I will try to make a note of how the recipe could be modified to be CSID-friendly, or at which point the recipe stops being CSID-friendly.

We have been living with my sister-in-law and her family while we have been looking for a house, and she has been a saint in terms of accommodating my family in her meal preparation. To avoid having to cook two dinners every night, she tries to cook meals which are easily adapted to a CSID-friendly diet. My kids have become much better eaters while we have lived here, which has been a huge blessing since we were running out of ideas of what to feed them. (^_^)

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble, so I am going to call this post done. Thanks for listening and humoring me.

Next post will be a recipe for the ultimate low-carb sandwich bread.

See you then.