Today I tried this supposedly easy East Hampton star cookie recipe, you know the gluten-free one everyone keeps pinning. Figured I’d share how it actually went down in my kitchen, step by messy step.
The “Easy” Beginning
First thing, grabbed the ingredients off the recipe card. Almond flour, coconut oil, maple syrup – all the usual suspects for GF stuff. Thought I was smart doubling the batch right away. Big mistake number one. Dumped the almond flour into my biggest mixing bowl. Felt optimistic. Measured out the coconut oil, solid as a rock even though the recipe said “softened”. Spent like ten minutes wrestling it into submission with a fork. My wrist started hurting.
The Sticky Middle Part
Poured in the maple syrup next. Stirred everything together. Looked okay, kinda wet. Recipe says: “Chill dough for 30 minutes”. Sure, fine. Shoved the bowl into the fridge. Came back later feeling hopeful. Pulled the bowl out. Dough had gone from “wet” to “concrete”. Seriously hard. Scooped out a spoonful to roll into balls. Felt like trying to shape cold clay. Messy. Sticky. Got dough bits stuck under my nails. Annoying. Shaped them into rough star shapes like the recipe showed. Mostly looked like deformed blobs, but whatever. Plopped them onto the baking sheet.
- Preheated oven to 350°F while rolling my lumpy stars.
- Recipe said bake 12 minutes. Seemed short.
- Shoved the first sheet in. Watched the timer.
The Oven Drama
Smelled good after 10 minutes! Peeked through the oven window. Edges looked suspiciously brown already. Pulled them out at exactly 12 minutes. Bottom edges were definitely too dark, borderline burnt. Stars sort of puffed up and lost their points. Looked more like bumpy cookies than stars. Let them cool anyway. Texture? Crumbly like most GF stuff. The second batch? Lowered the temp to 325°F and baked 14 minutes instead. Little better. Less brown.
The Final “Victory”
Let all the cookies cool completely on the rack. Way too fragile when warm. Tried one from the “good” batch. Taste was… fine? Sweet, nutty from the almond flour. Texture held together okay after cooling, but still had that slight GF graininess. The maple syrup flavor came through nicely though. Were they perfect star-shaped wonders? Nope. Were they edible gluten-free cookies that didn’t totally fall apart? Surprisingly, yes. Big win for my kitchen. Will I make them again? Maybe. But next time, single batch only, chill dough less, and bake cooler/longer. Recipe needs some tweaks for my oven, but it kinda works. That’s my messy baking truth.
