While fitness is one of my highest priorities, I haven’t given up my sweet tooth. Luckily I have found the Holy Grail: a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that are both tasty and SLIGHTLY less harmful than the normal processed white flour crap you’d find on the shelf at the grocery store. It can’t be brown rice and vegetables 24/7. You need to have a little fun.
First let me give credit where credit is due. I originally found this recipe on Ambitious Kitchen. (Click here) It all started with some cookies I had at a yoga retreat (you can stop rolling your eyes now.) They were fat, chewy, sweet, and unbelievably yummy…and just happened to be Paleo, but whatever. I couldn’t get the taste out of my mind, so I hunted down a similar and even tastier version on the Ambitious Kitchen website.
How awesome are these cookies?
-They are soft and chewy. Who likes a hard crumbly cookie?
-The dark brown sugar and coconut oil give them a unique taste.
-They’re gluten free thanks to the quinoa flour, and can be dairy and soy free depending on the type of chocolate you use….but, sorry vegans, they do contain eggs. I don’t understand Paleo, so I don’t know if they are or not….nothing against it; I’m just too lazy to research it.
-They are very popular. Other than two people, no one in my family has dietary restrictions and has to avoid wheat and soy. Everyone just likes the cookies because they are THAT good.
Ingredients
-2 cups quinoa flour (I have found it at Sprouts and Fresh Market)
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 tsp baking soda
-2/3 c melted coconut oil (Whole Foods sells some liquid coconut oil specifically for cooking, but it’s hellaexpensive. Target now carries liquid coconut oil for about $6. Yeah!!)
-1 1/4 c dark brown sugar. (Seriously, get the organic DARK kind, not just that regular sand-colored brown sugar if you want a yummy, molasses-y flavor.)
-1 egg
-1 egg yolk
-2 tsp vanilla
-1 c chocolate chips (Now this is where I do get down with Whole Foods. Their in-house brand 365 jumbo milk chocolate chips will make you want to leave your family and live on a paradise island with a bag of these chips.)
-sea salt for sprinkling. Don’t forget!
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk together quinoa flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a separate large bowl, beat together the coconut oil and brown sugar with an electric mixer. When it starts to smooth add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Beat until it becomes creamy.
4. Add flour mix. Mix on low speed and add chocolate chips…if you haven’t eaten all the chocolate chips already.
5. Roll into 2-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet.
6. Bake approximately 12 minutes or until they turn golden brown.
7. Remove from oven.
8. While the cookies are cooling, very lightly sprinkle with sea salt.
Option: Chill the cookies in the refrigerator if you like cold cookies. Once in a while the quinoa taste comes out, which is a little weird, but that goes away when those amazing chocolate chips punch you in the face.
