Chocolate Chip Cookies

http://www.flickr.com/, photo by Jamison Judd

Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookies in the world. As a kid, I loved creaming together the butter and sugar with my mom, then sneaking little pieces of dough when she wasn’t looking. One time, a friend of mine whipped up a batch of dough and just set it out on the counter in a bowl for everyone to enjoy, with no intentions of baking it! Now that I'm a mom, I still love the smell of those cookies wafting through the house while they bake.

There’s just something about chocolate chip cookies…

When we got healthy, I didn’t eat a chocolate chip cookie for months. I considered my love affair with them over, except for “cheat” days. I no longer craved them as I once had, but I still thoroughly enjoyed eating them!

After awhile, I thought, there’s got to be a way to make a chocolate chip cookie that we can eat more regularly. Priorities, right? So, I started experimenting. You can check out my first two recipes at Better for You Chocolate Chip Cookies. The first attempt is a much more nutritious cookie because it’s made with raw almond butter and contains no flour. It’s much different than a traditional chocolate chip cookie, but we like it.

The second attempt is still better for you than the average chocolate chip cookie, but it does contain turbinado sugar—still better than table sugar, but not fantastic. Definitely not something we want to eat all the time. In fact, after indulging on these cookies over Christmas (they were fabulous, by the way!) I had to label them “for special occasions only” and put the recipe a little farther back on the shelf.

Then, I discovered a recipe for Carob Chip Cookies in Amy Green’s cookbook, Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. Although our family does eat wheat, I love Amy’s recipes because she doesn’t use any refined sugars in them and it's easy to substitute whole wheat flour, if I want to.

These cookies are wonderful, and we don’t have to feel terribly guilty about eating them, because the only sugar they contain is coconut palm sugar. Obviously, because we make ours with chocolate chips, we don’t eat them all the time, but we can indulge in them occasionally. I know, I know, they've got chocolate chips in them. What can I say? We aren’t perfect. (I do buy the darkest chips we can find, and I make sure the ones I buy have natural ingredients.)

I’m going to include Amy’s original recipe for those of you eating gluten free, then I’ll include my version. I hope you enjoy some delicious cookies this weekend!

Carob Chip Cookies
by Amy Green, Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

Ingredients:
½ cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup palm sugar
1 large egg
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
1 ¾ cups gluten free flour (try Amy’s flour blend to save money)
1 tsp. gluten free  baking powder
½ tsp. xanthan gum
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 cup unsweetened carob chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add palm sugar, then beat until light and fluffy. (Hint: You will still see the palm sugar grains.) Add egg and vanilla, and beat until mixed.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, and kosher salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and beat. Stir in carob chips.

Place balls of dough on baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake  8-12 minutes, or until edges turn golden brown. Cool cookies on baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack lined with a paper towel to cool completely.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(adapted from above recipe)

Ingredients:
½ cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup palm sugar
1 large egg
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
1 ¾ cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. aluminum free baking powder
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 cup dark chocolate chips (I use Ghirardelli. You can buy them in bulk at Sam’s Club.)

Directions:
Follow the original recipe’s directions. However, you will not need to line your wire rack with a paper towel.