Free The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book by Roben Ryberg

dip the tines of a fork into the melted chocolate and drizzle it over the cookies.

Chocolate Graham Crackers
    brown rice flour
MAKES 10 TO 12 LARGE GRAHAM CRACKERS

    It’s funny to use the word graham in the name of this cookie as graham flour is
wheat flour, but no matter, it is the very description you need to visualize this
cookie style. This wheat-free graham cracker is richly chocolaty and not too sweet.
    ⅓ cup shortening, 70 grams
    1 cup brown rice flour, 125 grams
    ½ cup brown sugar, 100 grams
    ⅓ cup cocoa, 30 grams
    1 egg white
    Scant ½ teaspoon baking soda
    ½ teaspoon salt
    1 teaspoon xanthan gum
    ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
    In a medium-size bowl, combine the shortening and brown rice flour. Beat well. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl at least once during mixing. Add the remaining ingredients and beat well. Continue beating until the dough is thick and heavy. Continue beating for an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute for additional dough stability.
    Roll out the dough to ⅛-inch thickness. Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 5 by 2¼inch rectangles and place them on the prepared pan. Lightly score each cracker with a lengthwise and a crosswise indentation (to quarter each cracker), not cutting all the way through. Prick the tops of the crackers with a fork.

    Bake for about 9 minutes. As the crackers crisp during cooling and it is hard to tell what browning is taking place under that cocoa color, the proof is in the cooled cracker. I suggest you bake one as a test to determine the exact, best baking time—not enough leaves a slightly soft (although delicious) cookie; too much leaves an overly crisp cracker. Let cool on wire racks before serving.

Chocolate Meringues
    MAKES 35 TO 40 COOKIES

    Most meringue recipes call for cream of tartar to stabilize the meringue
structure. In this recipe, we are able to omit it. These cookies are light and airy
on the outside and almost a little fudgy on the inside. A fat-free winner!
    2 egg whites, 65 grams (at room temperature)
    ⅓ cup sugar, 75 grams
    ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
    ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 20 grams
    Preheat the oven to 300°F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
    In a medium-size bowl, beat the egg whites, sugar, and vanilla until the whites form stiff peaks (This takes several minutes, depending upon the strength of your mixer. It also takes longer for stiff peaks to form with the inclusion of the sugar than if the egg whites were beaten alone.) The batter will look like marshmallow cream. Sprinkle the cocoa on the batter and gently fold it in. The dough will then look like whipped cream.
    Using a piping bag with a large star tip, pipe large stars of dough onto the prepared pan, or just drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough onto the pan. Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, until the bottom edges just begin to brown (which is hard to tell on this chocolate version) and the tops appear dry. Let cool on wire racks before serving.

Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies
    brown rice flour
MAKES ABOUT 25 COOKIES

    A spiral of two tender cookies that complement each other well. What could be
better than both chocolate and vanilla in a not-too-sweet cookie?
    ½ cup butter, 110 grams
    ½ cup sugar, 100 grams
    1¼ cups brown rice flour, 155 grams, plus 2 tablespoons, 15 grams
    1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
    ¼ teaspoon baking soda
    ½ teaspoon salt
    1 teaspoon xanthan gum
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    ½ teaspoon baking powder
    2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, 10 grams
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
    In a medium-size bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat well. Add the 1¼ cups of brown rice flour and beat well. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl at least once during mixing. Add the egg, egg yolk, baking soda, salt, xanthan gum, and vanilla, and beat well. Continue beating until the dough comes together; it will be soft and almost creamy.
    Remove half of the