Gluten-Free Vegan Oatmeal Cookies - Rhian's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep gluten-free cookies from falling apart? ›

Use a Binder

Binders like xanthan gum and guar gum provide structure in gluten-free baking to make up for the missing gluten. This prevents cookies from being too crumbly plus it also helps with freshness.

Remember: Xanthan Gum is Your Friend

It might sound scary, but xanthan gum is key for successful gluten-free baking. It helps bind together the ingredients, preventing your cookies from falling to pieces. Be careful to not use too much; no one likes gummy baked goods.

You can use quick oats in a pinch, but it will result in a texture difference. In my experience quick oats make for a kind of thicker, denser cookie. They aren't quite as melt in your mouth. And the oats themselves will kind of disappear into the cookie more.

Using xanthan gum helps provide some of the stickiness that gluten free goods lack, replacing some elasticity. Xanthan gum mimics some of gluten's most essential properties by sticking to flour and its moisture. This helps create moist goods that hold their shape after being baked.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

Since there is no gluten there needs to be another way to level the cookies and keep them from falling apart. If you make home made GF cookies you would need to add an extra egg or two and more baking soda. That's how I get my home made cookies to work.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Old fashioned oats provide a chewy, nutty texture and flavor to oatmeal cookies. They are thicker and heartier than quick oats (instant oats). I don't recommend using quick oats because the cookies won't have as much texture and you want a nice and chewy oatmeal cookie that is hearty with lots of texture going on.

A: Absolutely! As I said, the benefits really don't differ between the three types of oats.

What binds vegan cookies? ›

Ground flax seeds

This is made by combining ground (not whole) flax seeds with water and leaving to sit for 15 minutes until the mixture becomes thick, almost the same consistency as a regular egg. The binding properties of flax seeds make this a great addition to cookies, brownies and other sweet treats.

But whilst we'd love to answer this with a resounding yes, the answer is more of a maybe. Depending on the recipe, and more specifically how much refined sugars they contain vegan cookies probably aren't the healthiest option when it comes to a sweet treat.

Yes, some Girl Scout Cookies are made with vegan ingredients including our most popular cookie Thin Mints®. For more information, visit the Meet the Cookies page of our website.

Another reason is that gluten-free flours, such as almond flour or coconut flour, can behave differently than wheat flour in baking. They may absorb more liquid, for example, which can result in dry or crumbly cookies.

This might be due to the lack of gluten but can be for many other reasons. Lots of gluten free flour is rice based and this can result in a dry and slightly gritty texture. The Juvela gluten free White and Fibre Mix have been developed to be as comparable to gluten containing flour as possible.