Thin and Crispy ‘Chocolate Chip’ Cookies

This recipe is from my attempt to make chocolate chip cookies from the “BabyCakes” cookbook. I didn’t follow the ingredients exactly, so mine didn’t turn out ANYTHING like the pictures in the book. Having said that… these are amazing… They are crunchy, yet chewy and oh-so-tasty.

Now for my shameful confession. Technically this recipe cheats my food restrictions. I normally don’t give into those gimmicks about some sugars being better for you than others, but I folded on this one. It calls for evaporated cane juice, which I keep a small bag of (its in the BACK of my cupboard, I swear!). And even though its supposedly better for you than regular processed sugar, its STILL SUGAR. It was one of those times where I attempted justifying myself by mentioning that I’m not specifically intolerant of sugar, I just chose to eliminate it for general health reasons. So yeah, I cheated. But for those of you who can eat evaporated cane juice on a free conscience, this is for you :)

I actually halved (whole batch is show below) the original recipe and made minor adjustments. After spending the 6 something dollars on a jar of coconut oil, 4 on Bob’s flour mix, etc etc I wasn’t about to have this recipe flop and waste all that money. But I found that it made PLENTY of cookies to satisfy me; about 2 dozen. It took me over a month to eat through them all (I kept them in the freezer.) I also didn’t use chocolate chips (couldn’t find any that didn’t have some form of sugar in them) but baking cocoa. Because of this I added a drop of stevia per dough ball to help mask the bitterness of the chocolate.

Thin and Crispy ‘Chocolate Chip’ Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut oil
6 tablespoons applesauce (homemade or unsweetened)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups evaporated cane juice
2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
¼ cup pecan meal (real recipe calls for flax meal)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons xantham gum
2 oz cocoa (cocoa and cocoa butter only)
1 drop of stevia per dough ball

Instructions:

Preheat to 325 degrees.

Mix together oil, applesauce, salt, vanilla, and evaporated cane juice. In separate bowl, whisk together flour, flax meal/pecan meal, baking soda, and xantham gum. Mix both together until batter is grainy but well mixed. Finely chop the 1 oz cocoa bar into small slivers; mix into the batter. Spoon the mixture onto cookie sheets (best if on parchment/baking paper – hard to get cookies off metal pan alone). Use ½ to 1 inch size balls, softly flatten them just slightly. (Since I used unsweetened cocoa, at this point I dropped one liquid stevia on each ball of dough, right before I put them in the oven.) Cookies spread, I’d only put 4 across and 3 down on each sheet. Bake on center rack for 15 minutes. Let them sit for a few minutes on the pan when you pull them out, then take the parchment paper off the pan (with cookies still on it) and let them completely cool; up to 20 minutes of standing time. Slowly peel cookies off the parchment paper so not to break them, mine were pretty temperamental.

So it was rather laborious and half the time I wondered if they would even taste good. But they were oh-so-worth it in the end!!!

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This recipe is linked to this weeks Slightly Indulgent at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. This recipe is also linked to Foodie Friday.