Gluten Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

It sure has taken me a while to get this recipe ready to publish!  Honestly, I don't like to bake and do it as little as possible, so it's taken me months to get around making to the recipe twice, exactly the same.  The original recipe was my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, the one I used for 15 years, and I wanted to make sure to do it justice.

I had already started adapting this recipe after I learned this year that grains (wheat, oats, brown rice, etc) are really hard for our bodies to digest and that soaking them makes them more digestable and removes most of the anti-nutrients.  So I tried soaking the oats and flour for this recipe in kefir, a fermented milk beverage.  Instead of dehydrating the soaked oatmeal in order to return it to a dry texture, I decided to leave it "wet" - which turns the cookie into a cake. 

Perfect!  My kids' birthdays were coming up, and I didn't want to serve a processed bakery cake.  I made homemade whipped cream as frosting, and voila.  A guilt-free birthday cake.

Just when I thought I was done, the elimination diet tests we had been playing with turned up a big, fat gluten intolerance for both me and my son.  So, the adaptation continued, and now what we have here is a GLUTEN-FREE chocolate chip cookie cake. 

I will admit, soaking the grains seems like a lot of pain and effort, but it really makes the softest texture and makes the food as nutritious as possible.  You will never miss the gluten!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

In the oven



Birthday cake worthy!

After the party - think they liked it?

 

 

 

GLUTEN-FREE OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE

 

Makes one large cookie cake if using a 14" deep dish pizza pan, or three 8" round cakes you can share!

 

2 1/2 cups gluten-free rolled oats (absolutely necessary to make it gluten-free, trust me)

1 cup millet flour

2 cups kefir (or sub warm water with 1 T. apple cider vinegar)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons pastured butter

1 cup coconut sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

8 oz chocolate chips/chunks

1 1/2 cup nuts of your choice (I've used pecans, walnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds)

 

 

Put oats into a food processor; pulse into a fine meal.  In a medium bowl (with lid), add oats, millet, kefir, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Mix well.  Cover and place in a dark, cool location in your kitchen and let sit for 12-24 hours.  While you've got the food processor "dirty," process the nuts into a fine meal as well - just sit them aside separately until you're ready to proceed.

 

After soaking the grains, add butter and sugar to a large bowl and beat until creamy.  Add eggs and vanilla; beat until smooth.  Pour soaked grain mixture into butter mixture and mix well.  Fold in chocolate chips and nut meal. 

 

Pour batter into a well-greased baking pan - a 14" deep dish makes a cookie cake, like the picture above.  But this recipe will also fill three 8" cake pans, if you want a stacked cake or multiples to pass around to friends.  Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes for the 14" or 20-25 minutes for the 8".  Toothpick will come clean when it's done.

 

Enjoy!