Dark chocolate molasses cookies

I've been wanting to make these cookies or a slightly lightened version of these bars for a while now. I totally planned to make them over the holiday break -- it went zooming by. Alas.  I finally got these made.  I made the first recipe because I forgot about the second.  Now the two recipes are documented in this post together and with pictures!  I hope to make them again soon.

Thanks Natalie for helping!

 

On another note, Nick and I went back to our bodypump class after 3 weeks off.  YOWCH is all I can say.  I love doing cardio and dance, but I don't enjoy weights.  I hope to get to that class 2x a week.  I need to do more weights.  Natalie is old enough (on Tuesday) to go with me to the gym and do the class.  Maybe she'll help me achieve my 2x a week goal.  I can see it happening over summer, but not sure it will happen before then.  
 

High fiber breakfast cookies

We like cookies...  Here are some that aren't too bad that we often make and eat for breakfast (and other times...).

Wet ingredients
½ cup (or 8 Tbsp) nut/seed butter (almond, peanut, tahini, or sunflower  etc.) We like peanut butter!
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1 t vanilla extract
½ cup liquid sweetener maple syrup (I sometimes do slightly less and add a little water)

Dry ingredients
½ cup  ground oats flour 
½ cup  ground almond flour
3 tablespoons flax
½ c rolled oats (not ground)
½ c fiber (either oat bran or whole flakes psyllium husks) You can choose how fiber-y you want them.
½ t baking soda

1/4 cup chocolate chips mixed in at the end (could be raisins or dried fruit if you wanted, but we like chocolate).   

Preheat oven to 350. Mix wet ingredients with a mixer.  Mix dry ingredients and add to wet. Batter will be thick (and delicious!).  Make into tablespoon sized balls and then flatten a bit.  Bake for 9-12 minutes.

Warning, if you use psyllium husks, I wouldn't eat more than 2 or 3 cookies in one day; plus, drink lots of water with these cookies (regardless of which fiber you use, but especially with psyllium)!   

P.S. If you make these with psyllium, you may need to add 2-6 tablespoons of water to get a good cookie dough consistency.  (I had to add 6 yesterday, add 1 tablespoon at a time until it looks good.)

 

 

 

 

Natalie and I make these often.  They freeze really well, too.  Pop them out of the freezer and into the microwave for 30 seconds (or so) and they are awesome.  Photos by Natalie.

Sunday equal Funday

 

These are basically these... (original recipe) except we used these incredible chocolate chunks, made 1 batch of PB and 1 batch of Sunflower butter, and didn't use coconut oil.  (One batch is kind of small for 5 people--especially with 3 growing girls.)

What we did:

WET INGREDIENTS:
Flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons water mix and let set for 5 minutes)

2/3 cup sunflower seed butter (or PB)
3/4 cup brown sugar for sunflower seed butter cookies (1/2 sugar cup for PB cookies)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DRY INGREDIENTS:
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1.5 cups gluten-free rolled oats, processed into flour (or 1.5 cups oat flour)
1-2 teaspoons non-dairy milk (only if needed to moisten batter--we needed more, but pour slowly!)
100 grams finely chopped dark chocolate (1 chocolate bar)

Mix all the wet ingredients together (very well) with an electric mixer.  Mix all the dry, except chocolate chips, and then pour into wet.  After mixed, add the chocolate.

Make into cookies--we made about tablespoon scoops and patted them down.  Bake at 350 for 13 minutes.

I love baking with my girls!

Making this soup for dinner... (but I'm too full of cookie dough to eat anything else.  Oops.)

p.s. raise your hand if you remembered a song because of the title.

A new cookie (gluten-free)

A while ago, I made these delicious apricot cookies.  Today, I'm making them gluten-free for my niece.  It's fun to bake on Christmas!  Merry Christmas!

End of the year reflection:  I remember a long time ago when vegan baking seemed hard.  Then I started learning about gluten-free baking and that was hard, and now, while I'm not an expert, I don't find it hard anymore.  (Learning is fun!)  (I learned I really like tapioca flour/starch!)


Here's what I did:

Wet ingredients
1/4 cup almond butter (I'm really bad at measuring almond butter... I just kind of scoop it out of the jar and eyeball it 'cause I don't like to clean it out of measuring cups)
3/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoon flax seed meal (I mix it in with the wet ingredients but don't add water to make a flax egg)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup apple sauce (I've been leaving this out lately)

Dry ingredients
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup almond flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon 
2 cups gluten free whole oats

(If you aren't doing gluten free, then replace the oat flour with whole wheat.  I still recommend a mix of flours as I think it makes a more interesting cookie!)

1.5 cups chopped apricots  (I bet these cookies would also be good with peaches or any fruit!)
Mix the almond butter, maple syrup sugar, maple syrup, flax egg, and vanilla. Mix well and then add the apricots to wet ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients (flours, baking soda, salt, oats).

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones. The batter/dough will be pretty wet. (If it looks too wet--wetter than my picture, add a little more oat flour--not more than 1/2 a cup.)


 

I made HUGE cookies.  I didn't just place scoops of the cookie dough on the sheet, but I patted the batter down so it was a little flat.  This recipe made ~16 cookies.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. (Bake for less time if you make smaller cookies.  One tray of my larger cookies took more like 21 minutes, but I think my oven had cooled and needed to preheat again.  My oven is really bad about that!)  

Note, you can also make cookie bars if you're feeling lazy.  Recommend 9X13.  Recommend checking at about 20 minutes.



 

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Yum!

Pumpkin Pillow Cookies and variations

I found this recipe http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2014/10/pumpkin-pie-pillows-low-sugar-vegan.html.  I love finding gluten-free recipes that look interesting.  I thought this recipe looked interesting, despite the coconut. One thing, you may or may not have noticed, on this blog, coconut oil is not used.  I don't like coconut.

I've tried cooking with it in the past but my veggies tasted like suntan oil.  (That's what I think of when I smell coconut--around here, we say I taste the beach when we taste coconut.)

Despite the prevalence of coconut in that recipe, I knew I could fix it.  I added a little more almond butter than she called for (instead of coconut oil) and used maple syrup instead of coconut sugar.  The cookies were very moist; I want to get some maple syrup sugar, but alas, I don't have any still and I'm making the recipe for a second time.

One other thing, the first time I made the recipe I put in A LOT of pumpkin.  I doubled the recipe ('cause 3 hungry girls around here PLUS one hungry husband). On the doubled recipe, I did math and came up with a whole can of pumpkin in the cookies.  Oops.  Really, I should have only used about 3/4 a can for a double recipe... The cookies, with my extra moisture still came out pretty tasty, but they weren't pillow like--chewy and moist, yes, but I expect pillows to be lighter and fluffier. They were good enough to warrant trying again!

This time I used (about) the right amount of pumpkin with maple syrup (so still extra moisture).  I thought the batter looked better and am pleased with how the cookies look and taste. They aren't very sweet, but that's just the way I like them! I added chocolate chips to half the batter (today and the first time). The chocolate chips do sweeten them up and I like them better without chocolate chips (shocking!).

Here's the recipe with my modification, but not doubled.  It made ~24-25 small cookies. 


Ingredients

1 1/2 cups rolled oat flour
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1 tablespoon)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tablespoon chia seeds


2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 medium apple, chopped
1/4 cup maple syrup
1.5 tablespoons almond butter (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

topping: cinnamon sprinkled on top before baking (Note, I only did this for the cookies without chocolate chips.)



 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add the oats, chia seeds and spices to a high-speed blender. Blend until the oats are a fine powder.  Pour the dry oat mixture into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the salt and baking powder.

Add all the wet ingredients to the blender container, apple, vinegar, pumpkin puree, maple syrup, ginger, almond butter, and vanilla. Blend until the apple is not apparent and the mixture is smooth.

Pour the wet into the dry bowl and stir until combined and a soft dough forms. Place the dough bowl in the refrigerator or freezer for 5-10 minutes to firm so the dough is less sticky (it is very sticky dough!) I made about 24 little cookies.

Bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes on a cookie pan lined with a silpat baking sheet. 

The cookies with 1 full can of pumpkin (in the recipe doubled) were good and I might make that variation again, but the batter was REALLY sticky--even with less pumpkin, it's still sticky! The original author said they make a good breakfast cookie.  I agree. I think she also thought they would be good for snacking on at ANY time--again, I agree!

     

a new cookie

I found this recipe for strawberry oatmeal cookies this past summer. When I saw it, I thought, I must make it with apricots.  I have a ton of apricots in my freezer from this past spring.  I've been meaning to make apricot jam, but I haven't done it yet.  I've been chipping off pieces of the frozen apricots and using them in my oatmeal and they are so yummy.  I decided to try to recreate the apricot oatmeal yumminess in a cookie.

 

Here's what I did:

Wet ingredients
1/4 cup almond butter
1/2 cup maple syrup sugar (it's crystalized maple syrup)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 flax egg (1 tablespoon flax seed meal + 3 tablespoons water)
1 teaspoon vanilla 

Dry ingredients
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups gluten free whole oats

1.5 cups  chopped apricots

Mix the almond butter, maple syrup sugar, maple syrup, flax egg, and vanilla. Get it as creamy as you can. Add the apricots when mixed well.

Mix the dry ingredients (flours, baking soda, salt, oats).

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones.

Scoop into cookies and bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes.

My husband and oldest daughter LOVE them.  I like them a lot. They are a great breakfast cookie. I want to add more apricots next time.  Maybe, I'll add 2-3 cups of apricots.  I'll keep you posted.  I probably have enough apricots for 6-8 more batches of these. (Unless I make apricot jam.)  Also, next time, I might use almond flour instead of whole wheat.  (I'm not gluten-free, but I find gluten-free flours more interesting than whole wheat.) Also, I don't need to use maple sugar, this recipe was very dry and needed a little more moisture (hence the maple syrup in addition to the maple sugar).

Another note, I might use less almond butter... (File this recipe under still in progress.)

 

(Oldest daughter liked them--she couldn't keep her hands out long enough for me to get a picture!)

New! Modified! Dark chocolate molasses cookies (still gluten free)

You may remember these wonderful cookies.  Thank you Vegan 8!  I decided to lighten them up a little (and I love them even more...).

PLUS, I made them into cookie bars--that means I am more likely to make them 'cause they are EASIER. We all need EASY,  right?



What did I do?

1 cup almond flour
1 cup oat flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch/flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (use a little extra like 1-2 tablespoons if you like it darker)
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoon ground flaxseed
2/3s cup pure maple syrup (use up to 3/4s of a cup if you like it a little sweeter)
2 tablespoons almond butter (sunbutter for nut-free)
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup dairy-free dark chocolate chips 

(I basically doubled the recipe, but instead of doubling the almond flour, I added the normal amount and then added a cup of oat flour. I didn't double the chocolate chips--they are good, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and I was trying to lighten these a little.)

(Also, I made my own almond flour and it was pretty coursely ground so there were a few (small) almond pieces left.)

1.Pre-heat an oven to 350 degrees and line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone pan liner (I love the reusable nature of silicone!).

2. In a small bowl, add the syrup and whisk in the flax seed and set aside for 5 minutes to thicken.

3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix together the almond flour, oat flour, tapioca flour, baking powder, cocoa, and salt together. Stir in the chocolate chips.

4. Next, stir in the molasses, almond butter and vanilla into the  flax seed mixture and mix well. Pour over the flour mixture and stir for a couple of minutes until it all comes together and thickens up. It should be sticky and thick. If it is on the runny side, add a touch more flour (your choice--mine was super thick so I didn't need to worry about this at all).

5.  You can either make into cookies (see the original recipe) or roll it out into a nice rectangular shape on your cookie sheet. Roll it to about 1/4 inch thin. Bake for 9-11 minutes, let cool, and then cut into bite size pieces. (Or whatever size you prefer.)

6.  Enjoy!

More breakfast cookies

I had some bananas to use up... I turned them into these.

 



Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup spelt flour
2-3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (Optional)
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons ground flax
2 small bananas mashed well
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup maple syrup 1/4-1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used 1/2 cup)


Directions
Preheat oven to 325.
Mix dry ingredients.
Mash bananas add 1/3 cup of water to the bananas as you mash them so they have more liquid.
Add wet ingredients.
Mix well (by hand).
Add chocolate chips.

Form cookies. (I used my new scooper.  Thanks, Kristina! Scoop then flatten the cookies a little.) (I got 23 cookies out of the batter.) Bake for 12-15 minutes. (I baked for 14 minutes.)


They are good.  They are very easy to make.  All 5 of us liked them! Nick and the girls liked them a lot (more than I did). I think they are probably better with a little PB on them. (That's how I plan to eat them next time. They were slightly sweet in my opinion.)

Note: I still haven't figured out if I like cinnamon in banana bread or not. More research will need to be done.

sweet! breakfast bar! (edited recipe on 9/28)

Scroll to the end for the final recipe for breakfast bars! Read the whole post if you want.

Note, this recipe isn't quite ready for prime time, but if you're not afraid of cooking "by feel" it's fun! Our wonderful nanny found this recipe. I thought it sounded delicious and knew it wouldn't be hard to make vegan style! The ingredients are great!

When I made the recipe, the batter for the cookies was REALLY soppy. (I don't know if that's a good word, but it's the one that comes to mind.) I made one tray of cookies and then decided I didn't want to make cookies because of how wet the batter was so I poured the soppy batter into a 9 x 11 pan, lined with a sil-pat, pan and baked it. After ~50 minutes at 350 (covered with foil for a good deal of time) I had a VERY moist cake-like creation.  My 9x11 pan wouldn't have been big enough if I hadn't have made a tray of cookies.  (Next time, I may use my 8x8 and 9x9 pan, each lined with a sil-pat for the double batch recipe.)

The cake-like creation was DELICIOUS and I knew it would make a great breakfast bar. (Store in the refrigerator and heat up--nibble on the cold pieces as you wait for the microwave to warm it; 20 - 30 seconds can be a really long time!)

Next time, I'm going to add more oat flour (maybe double) to see if I can't get decent cookies out of the deal. These were way too gooey as cookies. Very tasty, but way too gooey. I wonder if I'd started with a sweet potato and cooked it from scratch if it would have been better and less moist. Someday, I'll try that, but for now, this is easy and tasty!

4 cups sweet potato puree (2 cans)
1.5 cups oat flour
1/2 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)
1/2 cup flax (made into a really big flax egg with 1/3 warm water)
1/3 - 1/2  cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons Organic Raw Cacao Powder
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon clove
3 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

(The most important ingredient)
~2/3s a cup of chocolate chips

The girls liked the cookies and the "cake." They have a perfect fall flavor! Nick (husband) commented that there was a molasses taste--maybe a little--but there's no molasses, but that might be fun to try sometime. Kira commented that they tasted a little like gingerbread. Tia was convinced that these were my pumpkin muffins. I admit they were similar. (I like chocolate in desserts; if it doesn't have chocolate it's not worth eating in my opinion.)

Note: I used 1/2 cup of maple syrup and I don't think it was too sweet. (Remember, I don't like sweet stuff; 1/2 cup isn't a lot given how much batter you're making.) I forgot to add baking powder. Oops, the cookie and the cake stayed really flat, as you can tell in the pictures.

Here are the stats (estimated for 15 servings of the "full" not halved recipe):

Not bad on the Iron, Vitamin A, or Calcium (for a sweet treat).

Here's the recipe 1/2'd (in case you aren't feeding 2 adults plus 3 growing, active, and very hungry girls or the equivalent).

2 cups sweet potato puree (1 can)

3/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)

1/4 cup flax (made into a really big flax egg with 1/3 warm water)

1/6 - 1/4  cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon Organic Raw Cacao Powder 

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/8-1/4 teaspoon clove 

1.5 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

A gratuitous shot of the cans of sweet potatoes.

The "final" recipe for bars (9/28/2013) (I need to take a picture of bars from this recipe... the other pictures are of the first round.)

4 cups sweet potato puree (2 cans)

2 cups oat flour

1/2 cup almond butter (one could add less if they wanted less fat)

1/2 cup flax 

1/3 - 1/2  cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons Organic Raw Cacao Powder

1 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon clove

3 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

(The most important ingredient)

~2/3s a cup of chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients (oat flour, flax, cacao powder, ginger, clove, cinnamon, allspice, soda, powder, salt) then add sweet potatoes, almond butter an maple syrup. If the recipe seems too dry (mix well before you decide) add a splash of water or non-dairy milk.  

Bake at 350 for ~40-50 minutes. I used my 9 x 11 pan lined with a sil-pat and had to put another sil-pat in with a little on it.  I need to get something like this!

Halve the recipe if you want!

A hearty cookie

I found the inspiration for this recipe over at Oh She Glows. It looked fabulous, but I knew I had to make some changes. (I don't like coconut, I don't use coconut oil in my cooking, and they seemed like they might be a little sweet.)

DRY INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats, blended into oat flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal or almond flour
• 1/2 cup gluten-free rolled oats
• 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
• 3 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds
• 1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup of flax
• (If you like coconut, add some--up to 1/4 cup shredded. I don't like it and I didn't add it.)

WET INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup "drippy" raw almond butter (or other all-natural nut butter)*
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup pure maple syrup (I used 1/3 cup in the first batch I made and 1/4 cup in the second batch. I liked it both ways and will stick with just 1/4 cup.)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• about 1/2 cup of water to achieve the right thick cookie texture in the batter (I have no idea how much I added, but I don't think I added more than 1/2 of a cup, but in case you need more, feel free. The batter should be VERY thick and hard to mix by hand, but it shouldn't be "dry.")

The most important INGREDIENT**

• 1/3 cup mini dark chocolate chips (or finely chopped chocolate) (or more!)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with silicone baking sheet.
2. Grind the cup of oats into flour
3. Very coarsely grind the pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds--I did this because I don't like big seeds in cookies. I really like the effect!
4. In a large mixing bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients.
5. Add the wet ingredients all at once EXCEPT the water. Add small amounts of water at a time (maybe a tablespoon or two) 
6. Add the "most important ingredient" (you could add dried blueberries--if you're using dried blueberries, add a little cinnamon to the dry ingredients in step two (I'd use a teaspoon or two--this is my next experiment).
7. Portion small balls of dough (just smaller than golf balls) onto the baking sheet, and pat them down. We made 17 cookies, but only 15 would fit on the baking sheet so we ate two in batter form.  (Vegan cookies are AWESOME 'cause you can eat them raw!)
8. Bake cookies for 10-15 minutes. I have no idea how long I actually had mine in the oven, but I'm guessing around 12 minutes. I just kind of patted them on top until they felt cookie-like.

Cookie RePort

3 out of 5 of us loved this cookie (my husband, my oldest daughter, and me)! My vegan who doesn't like vegetables didn't like the cookie; she was suspicious when I offered her cookies for breakfast. (I originally called these "breakfast cookies" but later decided they should be "hearty" cookies since you can eat them anytime!) My vegetarian (youngest daughter) deemed it "okay" and she ate one. We'll see if she comes back for more. Note, I don't think this cookie will travel very well as it's a pretty fragile cookie.

Notes

*I didn't have any almond butter so I tried to make my own in the vitamix. Every site I read on the web said it took a lot of patience to make almond butter in your vitamix. I should have listened as I wasn't feeling particularly patient. After about 5 minutes, the almonds were a very fine flour, and just starting to get "oily," but I was having to stop the blender and stir them every few seconds--this wasn't working for me. I added a little water to the flour and blended for a few more minutes and called it "good enough for cookies." Indeed, it was good enough for these cookies as the cookies were very tasty. I now have to decide if I'll use (store-bought) drippy almond butter (and be tempted to eat it on other things) or just make more of my clumpy homemade mess.

**If you hadn't guessed, we love chocolate around here! I am excited to try these with dried blueberries and will report back when I get around to it.

I was so excited to modify this recipe that I got up early on Saturday morning to do so. My husband was surprised when he heard the blender going before 8 am, but delighted by the cookies!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies or bars.... your choice!

You may remember how much I enjoyed the pumpkin bars that I modified--or maybe you couldn't tell that I made that recipe about 6-8 times in one month and I was usually doubling it. 

Recently, I found this recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and I couldn't stop thinking about that idea. It reminded me of my beloved pumpkin bars, but it seemed like I could take cookies with me more easily than my modified pumpkin bars that were so moist and required a refrigerator. I knew I had to change the cookie recipe because 1) it wasn't vegan, 2) it had a lot of sugar, and 3) it had a lot of butter. When I read it, I thought, "I can fix it!"  Here's what I did:


Dry Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp clove
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup flax

Wet Ingredients 
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup water


And finally
1/3 cup (or so) chocolate chips (optional, but it's sad not to add these!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl.
Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add them together, and pour in chocolate chips at the end.  The cookie batter will be very thick and hard to stir.  

Shape into cookies or bars ... I made mine into approximately1.5 x 2.5 inch rectangles, so kind of bar-like. The recipe made about 30 of them. They were pretty big and thick; I baked them for about 12-15 minutes. They are hearty and not very sweet--just the way we like desserts and treats.

Low sugar PB2 cookies

The recipe is here:  http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2012/07/hardly-any-sugar-peanut-butter-cookies.html.

Super yum.  I think that you need only 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup of chocolate chips, not 1/2 cup like I originally said.  It's a good problem to have too many chocolate chips, but it does make it hard to make the cookies--too many chocolate chips and the cookies can't stick together.  

Hardly any sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

The recipe below isn't the one I've been working on that I mentioned here--I'm still working on it.  I hope to finalize the new one and share it this week. The recipe below is adapted from the PB cookie recipe on the "My Vegan Cookbook" site and mostly changed to make these less sugary.

My girls like them and it's great to have cookies that I don't mind giving them.  These cookies are SUPER easy to make; they don't even require getting out a mixer.

1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 Cup PB2
2/3 Cup Ground Flax Seed
1/4 Cup Oat Bran (or you can grind up some oat meal in a food processor or just use oats)
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Banana mashed up
1 Tablespoon Maple Syrup
1/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter

Note, for chocolate-y deliciousness, add 1/4-1/2 cup of dark (vegan) chocolate chip. Peanut Butter and Chocolate are my two favorite foods so I combine them whenever I can. If you want slightly sweeter cookies / bars, add a little more maple syrup or brown sugar.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all the ingredients well. (You will really need to work at getting the ingredients mixed well by hand.)

Make balls of about 1 tablespoon size and mash them down some with a fork. They are VERY sticky during this phase, so don't expect criss-cross patterns to show on top!

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly golden. After they are baked, let them cool for 10 minutes. They will be soft out of the oven and crisp up as they cool.


Here are the nutrition facts for cookies (without the chocolate chips) if you make 12 cookies.  I like to make the cookies in the shape of granola bars and use them as pre-workout treats.