Levain Cashew Oat Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to make the most unusual and maybe the best chocolate chip cookies!

---

A different way to go About baking

---

These are not your regular Joe Schmo chocolate chip cookies! They’re special cookies, real special.

​But just why are they so special?
 Delicious, truly

•  Gluten-free and delicious
•  ⅓ of the sugar of a regular cookie, and the sugar is a special kind
•  Sourdough, but they don’t taste sourdough, Levain means sourdough in French how special is that?
• Uses a special firm levain that’s easy to use, feed, and keep in  ½ cup balls in the fridge
• Uses a gluten-free sourdough/levain starter
• Uses alternative whole grains, nuts, and seeds
• Are easy to digest, and don’t cause blood sugar spikes because some of the sugar and grain sugars are predigested
• Bring out the natural sugars of the grains
• Uses a resistant starch which is prebiotic, feeds your gut flora good things
• Are a healthy snack, within reason
• Are made in a two-day simple process, so there’s little hands-on time
• Are made quickly in a food processor, there is no whipping butter and sugar together step
• Are freezable
• Family loves them because they are delicious
• Are revisionist baking and that’s what I’m all about.

I’m used to this two day process now, I do all my baking this way.

Once you’re in the swing of it, and leap over the differences from the old way of baking cookies, it’s actually liberating and much easier, and less of a time commitment over all, and the dough freezes beautifully. 

​Best of all you can feel good about these cookies and letting the family eat them on a regular basis.  ​

​

Here's the Recipe

---

---

gluten free baking mix

Making and Keeping a Firm Levain

So what’s happening in this recipe?

• The dough: flours, sugar and fat are levain/fermented overnight, opening up the natural sugars of the grains. Some of the added sugar is predigested. Flavors are clearer, and cleaner. 
• The digestibility is increased through fermentation.
• The flours are sorghum, oats, and potato starch with flaxseed as an extra binder. These flours create a tender, flavorful dough. The oats lend some crisp, and flaxseed a bit of chewy. ( A combination of tapioca and cornstarch could also be used but I really like these just as they are!)
• Cookies are leavened and the sour taste is neutralized with the baking soda, and baking powder--so they don’t have a sour taste at all.
• There isn’t a need to cream butter and sugars together, instead everything is done quickly in the food processor. Fats and sugars are lightened in the fermentation process.
• The flavor profile is more complex, and subtle, than a regular cookie. I think you’ll like them.