Are you ready for the new recipe? Today I offer you gluten-free cookies and egg-free, butter-free and yeast-free, with rice flour and corn flour and flavored with orange.

With these slightly rustic and definitely light cookies 😊 I participate in our indispensable weekly Light and Tasty column, which today includes – did you guess it? – a “free” recipe.

I must admit that this topic challenged me. Every time I tried to create the recipe something went wrong!

Initially, I had decided on a vegan tart, but its outcome didn’t satisfy me, so I decided to switch to cookies. An intelligent choice at that moment, because I could use that rice flour I was sure I had at home. I even told myself “why didn’t I think of it earlier, instead of wasting time with that tart”. 🤭

But no. Ready with a bowl and scale, and sleeves rolled up, I made the bitter discovery: I don’t have rice flour, I thought I had it but it’s not there. 😅 Ok, when it’s not your day it’s useless to insist, right? I put away the bowls, unrolled my sleeves, and postponed the free recipe to the next day.

The next day: I go shopping, specifically to buy rice flour… and guess what? (but where is my head sometimes??) I forgot to buy it! (how is that even possible??).

And nothing, in the end I took two handfuls of rice, ground it in the coffee grinder, added some instant polenta flour, and from the hat of this improvisation kitchen came out gluten-free cookies and without many other things, crumbly and crunchy and we really liked them.

I must confess that I had a bit of fear that cookies without anything wouldn’t taste like anything, but… in reality, they’re not entirely without anything, among all the free things, I didn’t respect one: without sugar. There is sugar, sugar is there!!! 😃

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Are you looking for a dessert that is without something? Here are more ideas!

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Inexpensive
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 20 cookies
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Healthy
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups rice flour (also homemade)
1/2 cup instant polenta (whole grain)
1/3 cup corn oil
1/3 cup sugar
1 orange (juice and zest)
1 teaspoon baking soda (leveled)
4 walnuts

Tools

Grinder
Bowl
Parchment paper

Steps

As anticipated in the introduction, I made the rice flour myself by simply grinding the rice with a grinder. The final result is not as fine as packaged rice flour, but for this type of rustic cookie, I was satisfied.
To grind rice with a coffee grinder, it takes just a couple of minutes.
👉 Only precaution: operate the grinder intermittently to prevent it from overheating.
Once the rice flour is obtained, pour it into a bowl along with the wholemeal polenta flour (the pre-cooked one, with short cooking time).
👉 Alternatively, non-wholemeal and taragna polenta flour (always instant) are fine. In the case of taragna, I recommend halving the quantity as it’s more grainy. I remade these cookies specifically to try them with this flour too, and they turned out just fine, just a bit more rustic.
Add a tablespoon of cornstarch and the sugar.
Pour in the oil.
Briefly mix the mixture.
Squeeze the orange.
Pour the juice (about 80 g) and finally the grated (or chopped) zest of the orange.
Lastly, add the baking soda.
And the chopped walnuts.
👉 Coarsely chopped walnuts bring that crunchy note to the cookies that always goes well with rustic cookies. They can be replaced with almonds or hazelnuts (but can also be omitted).
👉 Baking soda used alone, i.e., not combined with lemon or vinegar or cream of tartar, does not produce carbon dioxide and therefore does not have leavening power, but it still makes the cookies more fragrant. These cookies still rose during baking, and cooked perfectly.
👉 Alternatively, gluten-free baking powder can be used.
👉 To give a more pronounced orange flavor, a valid alternative to grated orange zest – or in addition – is to use candied orange peels. Making candied peels is very easy, I’ll leave you my two recipes below:
Homemade Candied Orange Peels
Candied Orange Peels with Cinnamon (also a suitable version for these cookies).
Work with hands and compact the mixture, which will still be crumbly (especially if the walnuts are in large pieces).
If necessary, add more orange juice or more rice flour to achieve the right consistency of the mixture.
Take small portions to roll between your hands into balls.
Gently flatten each ball with your hands.
Place the obtained cookies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
Bake at 350°F for about 15 minutes.
Let the cookies cool completely before eating them.
Enjoy your snack! 🤩