The Best Cookies I've Made

My husband LOVES chocolate chip cookies.  They are one of the few cookies we do make.  Once my husband thought I had perfected the traditional chocolate cookie recipe I started experimenting with whole grains.  My skillet cookie recipe is good, but this is even better (for cookies that is).  And my husband would likely agree that these are even better than my non-whole grain version. In fact, he usually prefers frozen dough to baked cookies, but he said the baked version actually rivals the dough - that means they are darn good!  Okay, okay enough about how good they are.  I promised a recipe using coconut oil today and this does.  My plan, however, had been to share my soaked granola recipe, but since this was only the second time I've made it and I did not write down what I did the first time, I still need to tweak it a bit to get the same results as the first batch.

Even though we LOVE these cookies and sweets in general, we try to keep our sweet intake to about once a week.  Unfortunately the month of December often messes with this plan and lingers through January.  At the moment our goal is Sweet Treats only on Sundays, not after every dinner (or meal if the kids had their way).  Once sugar enters our lives it is so hard to get it out again.

This recipe was somewhat of a fluke.  We didn't have any oat flour on hand and I know the key to good chocolate chip cookies is the sweetness of the oat flour.  I did, however, have oats and decided to throw them in my food processor until fine.  The result, a deliciously oaty crisp cookie that was not quite what I expected.  Normally we prefer somewhat chewy, but I was shocked to discover that they were even better the next day than they were hot out of the oven.

Best Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup Rolled Oats, chopped until fine in food processor/blender
• 1 cup Spelt Flour
• 1/4 cup All-purpose Flour (could probably use spelt or other wheat flour)
• 1/2 Rolled Oats not processed
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Turbinado/Demerra Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Molasses
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup palm shortening
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk (save white for another purpose)
• 1 + teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup chocolate chips (Callebaut are my favorite)
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine dry ingredients in small bowl and set aside.
3. Place Turbinado and Molasses in bowl of standing mixer and mix until fully combined.
4. Add butter, coconut oil and palm shortening, mix until creamed.
5. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla mixing after each addition.
6. Add dry ingredients and mix until fully combined.
7. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using).
8. Line baking sheets with a silpat or parchment paper for easy clean up. Use a cookie scoop or a spoon to place small balls on cookie sheets. Provide space for cookies to spread. Should make about 3 dozen cookies or more, depending on how much of the dough you eat.
9. Bake for 8 minutes, rotating from top to bottom and front to back halfway through. Allow cookies to cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to cooling rack. These cookies actually taste best when fully cooled and allowed to crisp up a bit. Pour a glass of milk and enjoy!

Prep Time: 30 min Cook Time: 30 min Ready in: 1 h

Best Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies courtesy of Jamie Del Balso.

Who Needs a Date?

Okay, I know very, cheesy title, I couldn't help myself.  One day I was searching through some internet recipes and came across someone's Larabar recipe and got the idea to make a version of my own.  I honestly don't remember where I found it and when I did a search for Larabar recipe I found a ton.  We call these "Date Balls" in our house and the kids love them.  My husband was not so keen on them, but that is probably because he doesn't care for dates (the dried fruit that is).

The great thing about these is that they are super easy, super fast, have little to no processed sugar (depending on which ingredient options you choose or have on hand) and I almost always have the ingredients in my kitchen.  Anyway, on to the recipe...

Chocolate Date Balls

Handful of nuts or nut butter (almonds, walnuts, pecans - preferably soaked and dried)
Handful of oats (could be soaked and dried too)
1-2 Tblsp Coconut (chips, oil, or shredded is fine)
1-2 Tblsp Cocoa Powder or 1/2 cup chocolate chips
1-2 Handful of pitted dates (I like to get them whole so that they don't have added sugar)

Throw the nuts and oats in your food processor and mix until there are small pieces or until it turns to a nut butter consistency (depends on your preference).  Add remaining ingredients and process until everything is sticking together and moving around the food processor as one cohesive unit.  You are pretty much done - now comes the fun part, roll your mixture into "Date Balls."  You can eat them right away or put them in the fridge to solidify.  Or you could roll them in chopped nuts or shredded coconut.  Enjoy!

This recipe is part of Real Food Wednesday over at Kelly the Kitchen Kop's site - check it out for more great Real Food Recipes.

Side note:  My son likes to roll them into "snakes or worms," if you or your children decide to do this I don't recommend serving them to others or leaving them lie around the house - they look rather unappetizing this way.

Do-It-Yourself: Granola Bars

One of my favorite blogs is 101Cookbooks, which is where I came across a recipe for Power Bars, but some of the ingredients weren't very interesting to me, so I set it aside for another time.  I finally got around to making them with a couple of substitutions (for the things I didn't like) and they turned out pretty good, but a bit too sweet and fairly gooey.  So, I tried again and again and again.  All of them tasted pretty good, but were sticky or falling apart or something just wasn't quite right.  I gave up for awhile because I was getting sick of granola bars.  Until one day when we were out of honey - I called up the lady I met at a local farm event who lives just a few miles from our house and has this amazing honey with a cinnamon flavor.  Unfortunately she was out of town, but she told me of a few local places that carried her honey - so I stopped in at a coffee shop to pick some up.  Of course I had to get a chai tea latte while I was there, how could I resist.  Anyway, while I was ordering my latte, they had samples of a homemade granola bar that was quite incredible!  It had lots of peanut butter and one of the ingredients listed was maple, so I went home and tried a new version of the "power bars" and came up with my favorite one so far.

Although the one I like has peanut butter in it and quite a bit, you can make it without if you are not a peanut butter fan.  You could also try other nut butters to see if you prefer that taste.  These are quite easy to make and very yummy too.  And, I promise that you will be able to pronounce all of the ingredients - unlike the ingredient list on some store bought granola bars.  And the best thing about it is that you make it what you want.  You add the nuts you like, the dried fruit you like and whatever nut butter or cohesive agent you prefer.

Granola Bars

Ingredients:

Oil sprayer

2 cups chopped nuts/seeds (almonds, walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds)

2/3 cup unsweetened coconut chips

1 1/2 cups rolled oats*

1 1/4 cups crispy brown rice cereal* (or something similar to Rice Krispies)

3/4 cup natural (no sugar added) peanut butter*

1/2 cup brown rice syrup*

1/3 cup maple syrup (not maple flavored corn syrup)

1/4 cup sucanat or sugar

1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, blueberries, etc.)

1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

1/2 cup chocolate chips*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In 9x13 inch baking dish toast nuts and coconut for about 7 minutes, stirring once.  When coconut is starting to brown, they should be thoroughly toasted.  Mix nuts, coconut, oats, cereal and dried fruit in a large bowl, set aside.  Spray pan with oil sprayer and sprinkle chocolate chips over the bottom of the warm and now empty baking dish; set aside.  Combine the peanut butter, rice syrup, maple syrup and sugar in a microwave safe bowl or in a saucepan over medium heat.  Microwave until the mix boils, about a minute.  Stir halfway through, add vanilla and then mix again.  Pour the syrup mixture over the oat/nut mixture until evenly incorporated. Press mixture into pan with chocolate chips using wax paper.  Allow to cool and then cut into whatever size bars you prefer.

*Side notes:  To make these gluten free, use gluten free oats and gluten free brown rice cereal. As mentioned earlier, you can use cashew butter or almond butter or any other nut butter in place of the peanut butter.  I have tried making these granola bars without the brown rice syrup, but honey made it too sweet and too sticky.  I believe the brown rice syrup really helps keep these bars together.  If you live in WI and have a Woodmans in your area - start there first, they should have it in the organic/natural aisle and it is more affordable than the health food stores.  If you are in CO, Vitamin Cottage carries brown rice syrup.  As for the rest of you, try Whole Foods, I believe they have it there or if you have a local co-op store or health food store, they should have it as well.  If you do not like peanut butter or other nut butters in your granola bars, then increase the brown rice syrup to 1 cup and eliminate the nut butter.  And you can decide whether or not you want the maple syrup in the granola bar.  The chocolate chips are optional as well.  They do make a bit of a mess on your hands when you eat them, because unlike M&Ms, chocolate is supposed to melt in your hand.  If you mix the chocolate chips into the other ingredients instead of putting them on the bottom, they may just melt in and go unnoticed.  But these are your bars, so do what you want!

To get a printable version of the recipe without pictures, click on the Recipe Title.  Hope you enjoy making your own granola bars.  Your family and friends will love them too!