Definitely Not Hideous

Cornmeal lemon cookies.

Sounds kinda gross, huh?  Especially if you really, truly, completely loathe lemony desserts.

But, my friend Alice's cornmeal cookies were the best.  Lots of crispy buttery sugary goodness, the gritty crunch of cornmeal supplemented by a little walnutty crunch on top.  Just enough lemon zest to give it a little ... zest.  A subtle hint of vanilla to soften the sourness of the lemon.

So, with the new dietary restrictions, was it even worth it to try to replicate Alice's cornmeal cookies?

In my not-so-considered gluten-free experience, G-free flours can be...well... a little gummy. Cakey. They have their own flavor. Or lack thereof.

Alice's cookies call for a mix of shortening and butter. But, I'm not doing hydrogenated shortening these days. Would all butter burn? Be too buttery and thus overpower the cornmeal?

Raw sugar is a lot more coarse than white sugar, and it's a bit more moist. Would that mess with the perfect texture of Alice's cornmeal cookies?

And the cornmeal itself.... Spouse is supposed to avoid white and yellow corn. He can have blue.  But,organic blue cornmeal is significantly more finely ground than normal yellow cornmeal. What if the cookies were too smooth and didn't have any cornmeal grittiness whatsoever?

On top of that, blue is such a misnomer. Blue cornmeal is really lavender-gray. Not exactly a cornmeal lemon cookie color. Would lavender-gray cookies be just too hideous?

But, having experienced relative success with the oaty-oat cookies and the cashew butter ones, I just had to give cornmeal cookies a try.

I'm still enough of a G-free cooking novice that I'm not ready to convert normal recipes.  But, Alice's cornmeal cookies are unusual.  Surely, nobody out there has concocted a G-free cornmeal cookie recipe. Google google google and...

http://glutenfreeislife.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/cookie-a-day-day-11-lemon-cornmeal-cookies/

Woo hoo! 

Except... ginger??? Spouse would love that. But me, not so much. And, while I want him to be able to enjoy the cookies, I'm really the one with the hankering for cornmeal cookies.

I didn't have the specified sorghum flour mix.  So, I used a random combination of brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour.

With blue cornmeal instead of yellow, raw demerara sugar instead of white.

And, of course, Alice's 1 tsp of vanilla instead of that 1/4 tsp of ginger.

Results:  Heavenly. Absolutely the best cookies -- in fact, the best anything -- I've made since going healthy.  

And, while my cookies were brown instead of the happy pale yellow of Alice's cookies, they were not hideous. Not hideous at all.