Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut Oil and Sea Salt - Gluten Free Option

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I recently realized that I never posted about my favorite chocolate chip cookies. I made them for my MIL/FIL when they came to Chicago at the beginning of the summer, and entirely forgot that I'd taken out my camera during the process and captured the beauty that is chocolate chip cookies.

It's an old thing, I guess, these chocolate chip cookies that so many of us make. Yet, we are always trying to reinvent the wheel, are we not? We sprinkle them with sea salt or stuff them with nutella. We add a little peanut butter here or some oats there. It is such a standard thing, yet we all find a way to put our own spin on it. Such is life, I suppose.

On this particular day, my changes were made more out of necessity than desire. You see, when I do impromptu baking, I have a tendency to try to make do. Make do without eggs, or make do without vanilla. Make do without anything, just so I can get one step closer to cleaning out the pantry while simultaneously creating something I may never have thought of if I'd had my perfect choice of ingredients.

So, when these buggers were in the making, I made a few swaps. No olive/canola/veggie oil? No butter? I had some coconut oil on hand and gave it a whirl. No chocolate chips? Well, let's ignore the fact that a true household should never go without chocolate chips. I had a dark Lindt chocolate bar that was begging to play a role in these cookies, so I busted out the knife and got chopping.

In the end, these babies were delish. Adapted from this recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut Oil and Sea Salt

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut oil, melted
• 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (if you are making this gluten free and using coconut flour, add an egg)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 chocolate bar, chopped (or 2/3 cup chocolate chips)
• Sea salt, for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine oil, sugars, eggs, and extracts and mix well. Then add flour, baking soda, and regular salt (not sea salt) and mix until well combined. Because this recipe uses coconut oil in place of butter, it may seem a bit crumbly. Never fear! It will come out of the oven perfectly!
3. Fold in chocolate with a spoon or spatula.
4. Put 1.5 inch balls on parchment lined baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt.
5. Bake for 7-8 minutes and then remove. Let cool and then stuff your face!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

• Do you have a special cookie recipe?
• Do you make it up on the fly or go step by step using a recipe?