Better-Than-Oreo Chocolate Cookies

While experimenting last summer with an ice cream maker that my husband got me for Christmas, I decided to try my hand at making a gluten-free cookies 'n' cream ice cream. (I'm not talented enough to give you a dairy-free ice cream, sorry. I just made it with regular cream and lactose-free milk, since I think lactose is the main problem for most of the family.) I'm pretty sure I actually never got around to making the ice cream. But the chocolate cookies I discovered in the process were almost as good as the cookies 'n' cream would have been.

I adapted this recipe for Homemade Oreo Cookies to make it gluten-free. This recipe gives instructions for adding the cream filling to these cookies, but I found them tasty enough without it. You can check it out if you want to try the filling... I'm not sure if it would work without real butter if you have dairy issues, but they do look pretty good! We like the plain chocolate cookies, which have a nice slightly-chewy texture and freeze well if you want to conserve them for longer. (If you are like me, you'd better put them in the freezer soon or you will eat them all in a flash.)

For those without dairy problems, I'm betting they would be positively delish if you add some vanilla ice cream in place of the cream filling...

BETTER-THAN-OREO CHOCOLATE COOKIES

Ingredients:
1¼ c. Pamela's Pancake & Baking Mix*
½ c. cocoa
1 c. sugar
5/8 c. butter or butter substitute (½ c. plus 2 tbs.)
1 large egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Combine first three ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.

2. Beat in butter, then egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

3. Place rounded teaspoons of batter and place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet, approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten dough.

4. Bake for 9 minutes in preheated oven. Set on rack to cool.

* If you use another flour or baking mix, check whether or not it already contains baking soda, baking powder, and / or salt. (Pamela's does.) If not, I'm guessing you will need to add 1 tsp. baking soda, ¼ tsp. baking powder, and ¼ tsp. salt.