Looking for a delicious, flavourful and chewy gluten free chocolate chip cookie? These fermented cookies use cultured cream cheese with whole grain oat flour for a perfect cookie. Though the recipe calls for chocolate chips (a classic!) you can turn it into your favourite drop-cookie by adding in all sorts of different flavours. See the bottom of the post for some delicious ideas.
Fermented Cookies?!
Pre-soaking or fermenting grain breaks down complex carbohydrates, making them easier to digest. It also helps improve the texture of gluten free baked goods, especially when using oat flour.
PrintCultured Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies are soaked and preferment, which makes them easier to digest. This is a great base recipe for all sorts of different drop cookies. See the section below for 6 different options.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 22 minutes
- Yield: 24 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Cuisine: Gluten free
Ingredients
Pre-ferment
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1/2 cup cream cheese
- 1/4 cup melted butter
Remaining Ingredients
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup sugar, to taste (see notes)
- 1 cup of chocolate chips
Instructions
- Mix your flour with the cream cheese and melted butter. If you are using homemade cream cheese, you can use it to pre-ferment your flour. Leave it to sit on the counter for 6-24 hours.
- Add in the remaining ingredients and mix until smooth.
- If you haven’t pre-fermented the dough, then chill the dough for 30 minutes before baking to fully hydrate the flour for a chewy cookie.
- Drop ball of dough (about 2 tbsp sized) on a cookie sheet, leaving 2″ between each ball as they will flatten as they cook.
- Bake at 375 F for 8-12 minutes. The cookies are done when they start browning at the edges.
- Allow to cool for 2 minutes before removing from the cookie sheet.
Notes
- In general I don’t cook with sugar at all. However, for a traditional tasting cookie, use a 1/2 cup of white sugar or coconut palm sugar
. You can reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup or replace it with an alternative sweetener, however the texture won’t be the same. Saying that, I usually use 1/2 cup of date sugar
and it’s fine for us!
- Store-bought cream cheese usually doesn’t have a live culture, so it won’t ferment the flour. If using store-bought cream cheese, then just mix all the ingredients together right away and allow the dough to rest for 30 min in the fridge to harden the butter and fully hydrate the flour.
- For fermenting, I recommend using homemade cream cheese, strained yogurt cheese or kefir cheese. The added tartness of homemade cheese really improves the flavour. Also, homemade cheese is softer than store-bought, so it’s much easier to mix with.
. You can reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup or replace it with an alternative sweetener, however the texture won’t be the same. Saying that, I usually use 1/2 cup of 
and it’s fine for us!Keywords: soaked, pre-fermented, breakfast cookie, energy cookies, salty chocolate pecan, white chocolate macadamia nut, apple cinnamon
Other Drop Cookie Options
I will admit that chocolate chip cookies are my FAVOURITE. I’m a not-so-secret chocolate addict. However, it’s fun to play with different flavours of cookies. Just replace the chocolate chips with 1-cup of your favourite alternative. Here are a few delicious options:
- Breakfast cookies: Add in a mix of flax, hemp hearts and raisins with 1 tsp of cinnamon.
- Energy cookies: Use sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. And replace the white sugar with date sugar for a cookie that will give you a long, slow source of energy.
- Salty Chocolate Pecan: Use a mix of chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of salt.
- White chocolate macadamia nut: My husband’s favourite… a classic mix of sweet white chocolate and creamy macadamia nuts.
- Apple cinnamon: Use dried apple chunks
with 1 tsp of cinnamon. For a fancy cookie, instead of mixing the cinnamon into the batter, roll the cookie into balls, then roll the balls in cinnamon.
with 1 tsp of cinnamon. For a fancy cookie, instead of mixing the cinnamon into the batter, roll the cookie into balls, then roll the balls in cinnamon.
This looks amazing! Can’t wait to make this. Have you tried to use sourdough starter in place of cream cheese?
No… but what a good idea! Definitely on my to do list now. Thank you!