Gluten-Free Secret Kiss Cookies: Flour-Free Family Favorites

You may have noticed that this blog has been relatively sparse in the baking department recently, and that the items that HAVE baked have been made without wheat. This is because I am crazy; specifically, I have this idea that I need to stay away from wheat because of a thyroid problem that I may or may not have. And this idea is, of course, based on information I found on the internet.

Rock-solid reasoning, don’t you think?

Anyway, since my mom wants to be just like me when she grows up (those of you who know both of us no doubt just laughed really hard), she is also giving up wheat in hopes of addressing headaches or something like that. And when she lamented how hard it would be to deal with Christmas cookies while avoiding wheat, I asked her which ones she’d like me to try to make wheat-free versions of, her first request was for Secret Kiss Cookies.

Those cookies we eat at an alarming rate every Christmas, leaving my mom frazzled and stating that she would only make another batch if we peeled the wrappers off of every single Hershey’s Kiss to be used.

This was never a problem for us. Now, however, I had another problem: how to make the dough without flour.

Problem solved. Read below.

Gluten-Free Secret Kiss Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chickpea flour**

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2/3 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/8 teaspoon salt

30 Hershey’s Kisses (any variety)

**You can spend a ridiculous amount of money on chickpea flour at a specialty grocery store, or you can buy dried chickpeas and run them through your food processor, press the final product through a fine sieve and save yourself a lot of money. You will, however, get quite a bit of chickpea flour in the air, and if you do this around that guy you tried to impress with butternut squash brownies, he will sneeze and probably not be amused. So it goes.

Stir together chickpea flour, cornstarch, nuts and salt, set aside. Cream butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, then add vanilla. Add chickpea flour mixture, stir in until dough holds together. Chill dough for one hour.

Take a one to one and one half tablespoon size of dough and begin to shape around a Hershey’s Kiss.

Repeat until all the Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped in dough.

Bake at 350 ºF for 9-11 minutes, or until cookies are a light golden color.

Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes, then devour by the handful, and pass along to friends who won’t believe that there isn’t any flour in them.

Have you ever done anything in the kitchen that made somebody nearby sneeze (I hope it’s not just me)? What was it?