Super Seedy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Nita Sharda, Carrots and Cake
Have you ever experienced that moment when you perfect the most incredible recipe? I have. It was a great feeling but one that certainly came with a lot of errors, epic-fails and me wracking my brain to problem solve. The issue was I kept getting a cookie that was too dense and too "hard". After altering the recipe (five times) and most importantly decreasing the baking time, I got it. PS it totally pays to have friends like Jenn and Courtney who offer up baking advice! Here it is...the perfect Super. Seedy. Chocolate Chip. Cookie. Oh and hey mama's! You can send these little guys to you children's school. It's loaded with protein but it totally no-nut friendly!
What are some things that I love about this cookie?
Vegan friendly. 'Nuff said.
Flax-water Replacement. Instead of using an egg to bind and moisten my cookie, I used a flax-water replacement. Yup, that's right you can use 1 tbsp ground flax meal + 2.5 tbsp water to replace one egg. Voila!
Seedy.Healthy and compact, seeds are amazingly nourishing. They often packed with protein, fibre, iron, vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids. In this cookie I use: hemp hearts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
Sweet, but not too sweet.I originally started off this recipe using 1/2 cup each of sugar and brown sugar. Coupled with the chocolate chips, it was just way too sweet for me. I reduced the sugar to 1/3 cup brown sugar and it's just great.
Healthy fats.I chose to use a plant-based fat, canola oil, for this recipe. There'a s few reasons why:
Canola oil is extremely neutral in taste. This means, the flavors from your ingredients are never masked.
I'm a prairie girl. Using canola oil means I'm supporting my local economy and most importantly our local family-farmers. Did you know, canola oil is 100% Canadian.
Canola oil is economical - yes, this Dietitian is on a budget!
Lastly, canola oil means more to me than it simply being a fat. Towards the end of my summer I was invited to join the Canola Eat Well team at Canola Camp. I learned a lot about the agriculture industry that I didn't know about before. A few things: growing canola allows farmers to nourish their soil (it gives back nutrients), it sustains our bees that are often busy producing honey for us and provides livestock with high quality protein for their feed. Quite honestly canola is life-sustaining. I'm still working through my journal (and brain) to really articulate what my experiences were like at camp to share with you, so stay-tuned.
Recipe tip: did you know that when a recipe calls for a solid fat to be melted you can often use canola oil instead? This works easily for cakes and muffins. Use this conversion chart.
Nita Sharda, Carrots and Cake
In the mean time, bake these cookies. Pour yourself a glass of milk.
Enjoy.
Super Seedy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Total time: 30 mins
Serves: 15 - 18
Ingredients
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flax meal
5 tbsp water
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup white flour
½ cup rolled oats or quick cooking oats
½ tsp baking powder
1/4 cup chocolate chips (dairy free for vegan option)
½ cup dried cranberries or raisins
1 cup seeds (your choice; I do a mixture of sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds and shredded coconut)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Soak flax meal in water. Ensure you’ve mixed it thoroughly with a fork. Let it stand 5 minutes.
In another small pinch bowl stir together baking soda in hot water. Set aside.
In a large bowl or in your stand mixer, combine canola oil, brown sugar until well mixed.
Add in your flax and water mixture. Stir to combine.
Add in the baking soda and water mixture. Sitr to combine.
In a separate bowl combine the remaining dry ingredients. Once thoroughly combined add this dry mixture to the wet ingredients. Give this all a whirl with your mixer or beater.
Take the crumbly dough and roll into small 1 inch balls and place onto a non-stick pan (I prefer to use parchment paper and to keep the cookies uniform I use a cookie scoop).
With your fingers, lightly press the cookie-dough rounds so they are slightly flattened (see photo above). These cookies wont run or expand much!
Bake for 10 minutes (important: do not over bake).
Makes approximately 15 - 18 cookies.
3.5.3208
Nita Sharda, Carrots and Cake
Nita Sharda, Carrots and Cake
Nita Sharda, Carrots and Cake
