Vegan, Gluten-free cookie bars

I have been on the lookout lately for tasty recipes for gluten-free, dairy-free baked goods.  There seems to be more demand for gluten-free cooking as people become more aware of things like celiac disease and other food intolerences.  Cooking gluten-free is fairly straightforward to come up with recipes for, but baking gluten-free is understandably a bit more of a challenge, and is something I have just starting to play around with in the last 6 months.

Recently I came across this recipe for Gluten-free Cookie Bars by Julie Hasson over at Everyday Dish TV, and we have a friend who has been going through some food-related problems, so I figured I would test them out on him and hubby.  For me, its all about the taste and texture — who cares if its gluten-free or vegan if it tastes like cardboard!  I’m a firm believer in enjoying your food — there is more to food than just its nutrient components!  I don’t want to be cooking for people if they are going to feel as though they are deprived of something.

Baking gluten-free does require stocking a few extras in your pantry:  I had some of the items already (flax seeds, egg replacer, chickpea and soy flour), but added a couple of extras (gluten-free AP flour, xantham gum).  Most are readily available at your local health food store, and some supermarkets are now stocking some of these items.

I have found that many of the vegan baked goods go together quite easily — no mixer required.  Because you are not creaming butter, or using stiffer ingredients, it doesn’t require arms of Hercules to incorporate all the ingredients!   This was a bit of a stiffer batter, but completely manageable.  I opted to bake these in 2 8-inch square pans (recipe uses a 9×13), for 2 reasons:

1. one pan was going to someone else for tasting
2. I used 2 different pans to see if it affected baking time (yes it did, glass baking dish cooked a little less quickly than in the heavy gauge metal baking dish)

Here’s the final result:  They had great texture, nice and chocolatey (I used 1 cup of chocolate chips rather than 1 1/2 cups as that was all I had), crispy on the outside, chewy in the interior, and they had a great taste without being overly sweet.  Hubby seemed surprised that they had no butter in them (he’s not normally free with comments, so this is good!).  I am thinking of using this as a jumping off point for other flavourings and other additions (dried cranberries and vegan white chocolate chips? orange zest and oil with dried blueberries?)

Thanks Julie for a great recipe!