Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (Dairy-Free)

I tried to step outside of my comfort zone and decided to bake gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bars! Here's to all of my family/friends who have celiac disease or have a specific gluten-.free lifestyle.

I thought it was so interesting that one of my friend asked me whether gluten-free is considered "healthy" - well, to answer that question, it really depends how the product is being made. There are many ways to make a positive lifestyle with gluten-free eating habits; however, there's certainly negative lifestyle that's associated with gluten-free eating habits - very similar to your ordinary lifestyle right? I'll explain more later in my post with some helpful information!

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bards (Dairy-Free)
Servings: 12 bars

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup coconut flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil 
• 1/3 cup brown sugar 
• 1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips 

Instructions: 

• Preheat oven at 350°F
• In a medium bowl, mix the ingredients: coconut flour, baking soda, and salt.
• In a large bowl, mix the eggs, vegetable oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract and unsweetened soy milk. 
• Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. 
• Fold in the chocolate chips. 
• Place batter into a brownie pan. Make sure you spread the batter evenly.
  **Note: It's not going to be as liquidy as typical batter so you will need a spatula to press the batter down evenly. 
• Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

Before going into the oven - see how I had to press the batter since the batter is pretty dense?

Fresh off the oven! 

I would say that if you are expecting an ordinary cookie bar, it won't taste like that. The coconut flour makes the bar a little grainy and you will get a hint of coconut in every bite. It's also a little crumbly but I personally like that consistency so don't be surprised if it's different from your average cookie bar you buy at stores. 

Continuing on the topic of gluten-free, one thing that I wanted mention about gluten-free is that just because something is labeled as gluten-free, it doesn't make it completely healthy. I explained it briefly on my other gluten-free recipe here but the point is that it is very important for all of us to know how to read food labels. Often times, gluten-free products contains high amount of saturated fats, excessive amount of oils, sugar, and other ingredients to replace "gluten"; therefore, eating an excess amount of gluten-free products is not considered a healthy diet. (Unless you are allergic to gluten, of course).

But I'm not all against gluten-free diets. It's completely up to you how you live your life and change or maintain a certain lifestyle but be smart about it. Make sure that you thoroughly research that lifestyle or diet change. Whatever it may be, there's pros and cons to everything. 

With that being said, you take control of your own health and YOU have the power to make wise decisions when changing your lifestyle :) 

From my kitchen to yours, Happy Baking! 

Smiles, 

Mei