Quinoa Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Use healthy quinoa to bake these dark chocolate quinoa sugar cookies. Included is a tutorial on how to make quinoa flour for this recipe, if you’d like to DIY it. These cookies make a great, healthy option for holiday cookie exchanges or stocking stuffers! Don’t forget to treat your healthy sweetheart these delicious cookies for Valentine’s Day. Gluten free foods never tasted so delicious!

Quinoa is a great gluten free food and can be cooked up to use in place of rice; it also makes a wonderful casserole filler and an additive to wholesome soups. It’s not actually a grain, but a seed.

To make quinoa dark chocolate sugar cookies, you’ll need quinoa flour. You can purchase it, of course, but it’s really simple enough to make your own. 

If you’d like to make your own quinoa flour, follow the instructions below. If not, simply skip down for the recipe.

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How to Make Quinoa Flour

I love the nutty, wholesome richness of quinoa and quinoa flour. It’s a simple gluten free food that is also delicious.

However, quinoa does have a few drawbacks. It happens to be covered in saponins, which are bitter-tasting chemicals that foam when put into water. These organic chemicals are usually toxic.

To make them palatable and safe to eat, you need to wash off the “soap” from the quinoa. Fortunately, it’s easy to do!

Wash Off the Saponins

To prepare quinoa for use:

1. Measure out how much you’ll need and put it in a non reactive bowl.
2. Cover the quinoa with filtered water.
3. Let it sit for a few hours and then rinse it several times to get the soap bubbles off.

Sprout Quinoa for More Health Benefits

I like to sprout my quinoa, too, since its so easy.

• Instead of soaking it for a few hours, soak it overnight and then rinse the quinoa.
• You’ll know its sprouted when you see a little white tail.

Make Flour for Quinoa Dark Chocolate Baking

This looks like a lot of steps but it really is super simple. The last step is to make flour for baking up the quinoa dark choclate cookies from this article or any other quinoa baking.

To Use a Dehydrator to Dry Quinoa:

1. Spread your soaked, sprouted, and rinsed quinoa onto dehydrator trays use these sheets to keep the tiny seeds from falling through the cracks on your dehydrator tray.
2. Dry the quinoa at a raw setting (around 115°F/46°C) but you can crank it to 135°F/57°C so it will dry faster.
3. The quinoa should be dry in an hour or two. It really doesn’t take too long because these buggers are so small.
4. Check your favorite dehydrating manual for specific times and temps.

To Use an Oven:

1. If you’re using an oven to dry the quinoa, place it onto a cookie sheet.
2. Place the oven on the lowest setting possible and insert the cookie sheet.
3. Stir the quinoa frequently and smooth the seed back on the tray. Check it frequently.
4. The quinoa should only take an hour or two to dry.

Finally Grind Quinoa to Make Flour

It’s time to make the flour and all you need is a good blender!

1. After the quinoa is completely dry, put it in the blender and hit your highest setting.
2. Stop the blender every few minutes and bang it to move the quinoa around and shake it down. Blend until all the quinoa has been turned to fine flour.
3. Process the quinoa a cup at a time.

Quinoa is light and dry and it should blend up pretty easily.

Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Quinoa Sugar Cookie Recipe

For a sweet biscuit, leave off the powdered sugar; for a super sweet cookie, lightly dust these babies in it.

Gluten Free Foods: Quinoa and Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies

For a simple and sweet biscuit, leave off the powdered sugar. For a real cookie, lightly dust these in powdered sugar.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 2/3 Cup Butter
• 1 1/2 Cups Raw Sugar
• 2 Fresh Eggs
• 1/2 Cup Organic Fair Trade Cocoa
• 1/3 Cup Fresh Milk
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 1/3 Cups Gluten Free Flour I use Bob's 1 to 1
• 1 1/3 Cups Red or White Quinoa Flour
• 1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Sea Salt
• Powdered Sugar optional

Instructions

 

• Cream butter (2/3 C) and sugar (1 1/2 C).
• Add 2 eggs, cocoa (1/2 C), milk (1/3 C), and vanilla (1 tsp.); mix well.
• In a separate bowl, mix gluten free flour (1 1/3 C), quinoa flour (1 1/3 C), baking powder (1 Tbsp.), and salt (1/2 tsp.).
• Mix dry and wet together until well blended. Form into a ball and refrigerate for an hour*.
• Roll out dough to 1/4" thickness and use your favorite cookie cutters to make fun shapes.
• Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
• IMPORTANT: Let the cookies rest on the baking sheets for at least five minutes before you move them to a baking rack or they'll fall apart. A bit of extra care can go a long way when working with gluten free flours.
• Roll these in homemade powdered sugar or spread them with homemade hazelnut and chocolate spread. OR just eat them plain because they're divine.

Notes

I usually wrap my cookie dough in a silicone baking sheet instead of plastic wrap. Then I can easily use the sheet for baking up the cookies.

If you reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup, these make awesome sweet-ish crackers. You can still roll them in homemade powdered sugar (or slather them in homemade hazelnut spread) to sweeten them up, just like the full sugar variety. I love them plain!

Keyword cookies, dark chocolate, gluten free, quinoa

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Dark Chocolate Quinoa Sugar Cookie Baking Tidbits

This recipe is adapted from a fabulous quinoa cookbook called Quinoa: The Everyday Superfood. I own it and highly recommend it.

Not all the recipes are gluten free, fyi, but all the ones I’ve tried have been very tasty. My kids eat them, so there you go.

If you need to freeze these cookies, you can do so for up to eight weeks, though they last that long. You can also store them well in the refrigerator for up to ten days. 

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