No Refined Sugar Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

These are chewy, soft-centered oatmeal raisin cookies made without wheat flour and without refined sugar. Maple syrup does the sweetening. Oats do most of the structural work. And a simple gluten-free flour blend you can mix at home handles the rest.

One thing to know upfront: these cookies do not spread. More on why below, and what to do about it.

Make the Flour Blend

You can use a store-bought gluten-free all-purpose blend here, and it’ll work fine. But if you’d rather make your own (it’s cheaper and takes about thirty seconds), here’s the mix I use.

Makes 100g, enough for one batch:

Ingredient	Amount
Brown rice flour	70g
Tapioca starch	30g
Baking soda	½ tsp
Xanthan gum	¼ tsp

Whisk everything together, and it’s ready to use.

Making a jar of it? Multiply everything by five, whisk thoroughly, and store airtight. Kept dry, it holds for months, since baking soda is stable as long as it isn’t exposed to moisture or acid. Whisk the jar before each use so the soda and xanthan stay evenly distributed, then weigh out 100g per batch.

Using a store-bought blend? Use 100g, and check the label. If it already contains xanthan gum, don’t add more. Add ½ tsp baking soda separately, as most commercial blends don’t include leavening.

Why These Don’t Spread

If you’ve made conventional cookies, you expect a scooped ball to flatten and widen in the oven. These won’t, and there are two reasons.

Refined sugar drives spread. In a standard cookie, granulated sugar liquefies under heat, thinning the dough and letting it flow outward before the structure sets. Maple syrup is already liquid at room temperature, so it behaves differently.

Oats and xanthan gum resist flow. Both are aggressive at holding water. That’s what gives these cookies their chew, but it’s also what keeps the dough locked in place.

Flatten before baking, and you get the cookie shape you want, with a perfectly chewy texture.

If yours do spread — it’s almost always warm dough, or melted butter that was still warm when it went in. Fat that’s soft flows before the cookie can set. The fix is simple: chill the shaped cookies in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes and bake them straight from cold. Cold fat holds the shape until the structure sets. Oil-based batches spread less than melted butter, so if spread is a recurring problem, use oil.

Substitutions

Can I use banana instead of butter or oil? Partially. Banana brings moisture and sweetness, but no fat, so a straight swap gives you a cakey, soft cookie rather than a chewy one, and you lose the crisp edge entirely. If you want to try it, use 50g mashed banana plus 40g oil, and cut the maple to about 90ml since the banana sweetens too.

Other dried fruit? Chopped dried apricots, cranberries, or cherries all work at the same 120g. Raisins are the most forgiving because they rehydrate readily in the dough.

Can I use only oat flour instead of the blend? Yes, just use 100g oat flour or grind an additional 100g of oats. You’ll get a softer, more crumbly cookie without the chew that tapioca provides. Skip the xanthan if you go this route; oat flour binds well enough on its own.

Coconut sugar or dates instead of maple? Coconut sugar works at 120g, and because it’s a dry crystalline sugar, you’ll actually get slightly more spread than the maple version. Date paste works too but makes a denser cookie — use about 150g and add a splash of water to loosen.

On the oats: buy certified gluten-free. Oats are naturally gluten-free but are frequently processed on shared equipment with wheat, so standard oats carry real cross-contamination risk.

On the maple: use dark or Grade B if you can find it. The flavor is deeper and stands up better to baking than the lighter grades.

Storage

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four to five days. They soften over time as the oats continue to absorb moisture, which most people prefer.

You can also freeze the raw scooped-and-flattened dough for up to three months. Just bake straight from frozen when you’re ready, adding two minutes to the total bake time.