Cup4Cup, Head 2 Head: Julienne's Double-Chocolate Espresso Walnut Cookies

Since we found out about my husband Tom's sensitivity to gluten, I have been experimenting with alternative flours. I have made some gluten-free recipes written for particular types of specialty flours, but I had yet to try using an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend in a recipe written for regular wheat flour. One reason is simply cost, because all-purpose gluten-free flours are quite expensive. But when I was able to get some Cup4Cup gluten-free flour (developed in the kitchen of Thomas Keller's French Laundry) on sale, I decided to see if it would work in a regular recipe.

I have to admit that while I have sky high expectations for anything associated with chef Thomas Keller, I was still nervous about using the precious Cup4Cup flour (retail price: $20 for a three-pound bag!) on an experiment that might turn out badly. Specifically, I was a bit concerned after reading a recent Los Angeles Times test of several gluten-free flours, where the results with Cup4Cup looked terrible. So I decided to try a low-risk recipe, one without a lot of flour. I had the perfect recipe in my to-bake recipe pile: the Double-Chocolate Espresso Walnut Cookie from Julienne.

This recipe immediately caught my eye when it appeared in the L.A. Times' Culinary SOS column more than year ago, but I had delayed making it because I feared it might bring on another case of ACO (assault with a chocolate object). But the recipe requires only three ounces of flour and it was therefore ideal for my first test of Cup4Cup -- and to make it a real test, I made two batches of cookies to compare head to head, one with Cup4Cup, and the other with White Lily all-purpose flour.

You can make the batter in a few minutes: beat eggs, sugar, espresso powder, and vanilla; add in melted chocolate and butter; add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt); and fold in chocolate chips and walnuts. You an scoop out the dough immediately and bake. For the wheat cookies, I used a #30 scoop and got 43 cookies; for the gluten-free version, I used a #24 scoop and got 39 cookies. These yields are not equivalent -- apparently there was a greater volume of dough with the Cup4Cup batch.

The two version of the cookies came out looking the same -- except for the size difference, which was intentional. I wanted to make sure I could tell the two batches apart so that I would be able to keep the gluten-free cookies separate, and just for good measure, I also garnished the gluten-free version with a piece of walnut on top so there would be no mistaking one type for the other.

If I had eaten the regular and gluten-free cookies at two different points in time, I doubt that I would have been able to tell the difference between them, because they were almost identical. The cookies were soft and deeply chocolate-y (without going overboard -- no ACO here!), enhanced with the flavor of espresso and the interesting texture of the walnuts. Tasting the two version of the cookies head to head, I could detect a minor difference in texture -- the gluten-free version was a bit more tender, and it was actually my favorite. Several other people who tasted both versions also voiced a preference for the gluten-free variety.

While I'm still uncertain how Cup4Cup will perform in other baking applications, it definitely passed this first test with flying colors!

Recipe: "Julienne's Double-Chocolate Espresso Walnut Cookies," from the March 17, 2012 Los Angeles Times.