Melt-in-Your-Mouth Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
I was craving oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The buttery-flavored kind that I remembered eating as a child. I wanted to smell that sweet aroma that fills the kitchen just a few minutes before the oven timer beeps. The zucchini oatmeal breakfast cookies that I made earlier in the week just didn’t satisfy that craving. They tasted too health conscious (if there is such a thing). They lacked the flavor of the chocolate chips and the distinctly crisp yet soft texture of oatmeal cookies that have all of those rich and over-processed ingredients.
As I searched for oatmeal cookie recipes on my laptop, I was appalled by the amount of white sugar and fatty butter I found in each recipe. One recipe actually called for two cups of butter and while I’m sure they would taste wonderful, I wasn’t quite sold on thinking about the tablespoon of butter I would be eating each time I picked up a cookie. I wanted to cut out the artery-clogging fat and the large amount of processed sugar in each cookie. So, I thought, why not create a near guilt-free cookie? One that would be highly-flavored and with crisp edges that led to a soft gooey center.
After my disastrous pancake episode earlier in the day, I wasn’t leaving the outcome of these cookies up to chance. Since all of these drop-cookies didn’t fit on the baking sheet, I put two in a small loaf pan and tested those first. I wanted to make sure the batter wasn’t too dry and that the end result would more than satisfy my sugar-loving taste buds.
The verdict? Without any butter, eggs, or table sugar, these cookies had a buttery flavor that came from the combination of using coconut oil instead of butter and sucanat instead of sugar (which has the flavor of brown sugar). As I neared the center of these precious gems, the soft cookie crumbled into my mouth, the taste, fully appeasing my week-long craving. The rolled oats towards the outside of the cookie added that promised crunch I desired. I was in such a good mood from the making and eating of these cookies that I only laughed when I came into the bedroom and saw my dog, Maxi, chewing holes into my white, cotton , lace-trimmed underwear. Sadly, it’s not the first time he’s done this. He seems to have an affinity for my panties. I’ve even seen him just walking around the house with them. It’s weird, but also slightly hilarious to think of this small cockapoo creeping around the house with my underwear in his mouth!
Back to the cookies! I’m guessing that if you make these, you’ll find reasons to keep coming back into the kitchen and that somehow you’ll just keep picking up another cookie each time. I mean they’re healthy right? Indulge a little.
These were just out of the oven and nearly ready to be eaten!
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies:
*Lightly adapted from the chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe found at allrecipes.com
*Makes about 14 cookies (recipe can easily be doubled to make more cookies, I just didn’t want to have 28 cookies laying around in the house – it seemed deadly since only two of us live here)
3/4 cup of oat flour (GF if you prefer, or if you don’t have oat flour white/wheat might work also)
1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
1 tsp of baking soda (*not sure if it needs baking soda, because they don’t really rise due to the denseness of the oat batter)
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/4 – 1/2 tsp of sea salt
3/4 cup of vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Whole Foods 365 brand, which naturally has no dairy)
1 mashed banana
1/2 a cup of sucanat (I used the Wholesome Sweeteners brand, though I’m sure you could use regular brown sugar or turbinado sugar)
1/4 of a cup of coconut oil, packed in the measuring cup and then melted
1 tsp of vanilla extract
Method:
1- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then whisk the flour, oats, chocolate chips, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
2- In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and then add the sucanat to them.
3- Melt the coconut oil and add it to the banana mixture. I melted mine in the microwave for about 1 minute. You can also stir in the vanilla at this time.
4- Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Make sure you stir the batter enough so all of the oats are coated by the wet ingredients. Note that the batter won’t be overly moist or doughy (no need to worry, since that is the way it is supposed to be).
5- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
5- On a lined baking sheet, drop cookies onto a baking sheet using a tablespoon. You may have to form them a bit just to make sure that all of the cookie stays together (as the batter crumbles easily before baking).
6- Bake for about 10 minutes (depending on your oven). When they are finished the bottom should be a golden brown color and the top should begin to brown.
7- Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for about five minutes and then move them over to a cooling rack for five minutes or so. Note that the cookies are fragile when they immediately come out of the oven, so be gentle when taking them off of the cookie sheet.
Do you have any favorite healthy dessert recipes that you’ve made or any healthy baking tips? As always, enjoy the recipe and let me know how the oatmeal cookies turn out, if you make them!
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Oh my gosh! I want to eat one with my coffee right now! Great job. I’ll have to give them a try. Never tried sucanat. But my friend just made her own brown sugar using molasses and… one other ingredient (??). She says she’ll never go back to store-bought!
Oh you’ll have to let me know if you found out how she made it & how the cookies turn out for you if you make them! I liked using the sucanat. It almost smelled like iced tea mix. It is a golden brown color and the granules are much bigger than normal sugar. It was a bit more expensive, but organic and fair trade, so I can’t argue with supporting it!
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