Welcome to my Kakookies store!
These cookies have quite a history. They started out as a whole-wheat granola type breakfast cookie that I was sending to my daughter, a collegiate cyclist in Vermont. They were tasty, traveled well and provided better nutrition than the fast food they were consuming before races.
A few years later, we hosted Nature Valley Training Camp for the Pro Chase and Collegiate All Stars teams. Two of the 12 cyclists were following Gluten Free diets and since I was in charge of cooking all the meals for some talented athletes, I experimented with my trustworthy breakfast cookie recipe, replacing the whole wheat flour with a donated box of GF Bisquick mix and Rice Chex cereal. They were a hit. Because the packaged products were an expensive cooking ingredient, I decided to mix up my own gluten free flour mix. Again, the cookies were yummy and disappeared quickly, but I didn’t like all the white refined powders (garbanzo bean flour, rice flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, etc) and I wasn’t happy with refined carbs and added sugars from the processed cereal. In a quest to “clean up” this cookie, I simply replaced the flours and processed cereal with oats and nuts. They were delicious!
The following year of hosting Nature Valley Pro Chase and Collegiate All Stars Training Camp, I was eager to challenge myself to accommodate a dairy allergy and a vegan diet. My recipe had been so forgiving, I confidently switched out the butter with Earth Balance Spread and the egg with Ener-G powdered egg replacement. It worked, and the cookies, once again vanished. While I had succeeded in creating mouth watering gluten free and vegan friendly cookies, I began to question the use of the powdered starches and man-made products as good fuel for these amazing athletes. I had strayed from my original focus of that first breakfast cookie I was sending to Vermont ~ A healthy cookie that offered better nutrition and healthier calories, not empty ones.
After redeveloping my recipe to meet my original goals, and sending samples across the country to my willing taste-testers, I am pleased to offer Kakookies; “Nutritious AND Delicious”, home-style cookies that just so happen to be gluten, dairy and egg free. Unlike other GF baked goods, I am not trying to copy a traditional recipe by substituting flours and calling it a GF chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie. Rather, I have created splendiferous flavors that rely on the wholesome ingredients to deliver expressive and distinctive flavor.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson