Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Almost Vegan Spelt Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Did you get all that?  I could throw Stevia in to the name, but nahhh!  I made these cookies three times in one evening.  The recipe is pretty small and super easy to mix up with just a bowl and a wooden spoon.  I’ve been enjoying playing around with Stevia In the Raw after using it with the Mint Chocolate Chip Frozen Yogurt I made recently and trying it in different things.  I wanted to try it with my favorite—a chocolate chip cookie, but I wanted it to be a rather healthy version of the chocolate chip cookie.  After somewhat of a search I found  these cookies at Sweet + Natural.  They are a Dreena Burton recipe who bakes and blogs vegan and has a cookbook or two out.  You can find the recipe I adapted from on the link above for “these cookies”.  I’m calling them Almost Vegan because my point was for a healthier cookie, but I just used regular chocolate chips.  Without further ado—here’s the Almost Vegan Spelt Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I think they’re really good.  I had to keep tasting to see if they were and after three batches (about 60 cookies later), I decided they were good!  (No, I didn’t EAT 60 cookies!  Sheesh. ;) )

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Almost Vegan Spelt Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies, adapted by Katrina Smith from a Dreena Burton recipe

1 cup spelt flour (4 1/2 ounces) (I also tried them with 1/2 cup spelt flour and 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour—equally good and you could probably just use any flour you’d like)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup Stevia In The Raw (also tried 1/4 cup Turbinado Sugar—also good.  Dreena uses Sucanat)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (Dreena uses grain sweetened chips)

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, “sugar” and salt.  In another bowl, combine maple syrup, molasses, vanilla extract and canola oil and mix until well combined.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.  Place spoonfuls of cookie dough on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake for 8 minutes.  I got 21 cookies, Dreena only gets 12!

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The pictures of the cookies look slightly different because the top ones are with the mix of spelt flour and white whole wheat flour with turbinado sugar instead of Stevia and the bottom picture are the ones with all spelt flour and Stevia.  Both good but I do like the ones with turbinado sugar better, but if you’re going for less calories, try the Stevia.  The Stevia has just a slight aftertaste, but to me, not as unpleasant as other sugar free sweeteners and though I haven’t totally studied up on Stevia, it’s all natural and comes from a plant and has no calories. 

That said, I have also recently tried it with a brownie recipe I got from the Stevia website and I didn’t like those at all.  The brownies were very dry and cakey and I kind of knew while putting the recipe together that they just weren’t going to be very good.  They actually sat here for a few days, then I threw them out.

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I should have tried Stevia in my favorite brownie recipe to replace some of the sugar.  I’ll probably still try that sometime.  I also made some peanut butter cookies (the almost flourless kind) and replaced some of the sugar in them with Stevia and I didn’t care for those either.  But I think that was more just the whole recipe and that I used a totally all natural peanut butter, which made the cookies really not very sweet at all.  Interesting thing was I personally didn’t like the cookies, but the kids ate them up!

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That’s all for now!  Catch ya later.

28 comments:

Maria said...

I love the healthy cookies! Great recipe!

Lisa Ernst said...

These cookies look good, something I'd be interested in trying. I'd up the chips though. (Of course :-)). Those brownies look way too healthy. When they're taken that far away from their essence, I say, whats the point? Ha!

Mimi said...

Thanks for more stevia recipes, both good and bad. I'm always looking for way to cut down on refined sugar.
Mimi

noble pig said...

Almost vegan...is that like being almost pregnant? Ha-ha. These look good.

Fallon said...

The almost vegan sound good! Since I'm trying to be good, I think I'll attempt to make a half batch of these for a little treat. Question for you though! Where did you purchase your spelt flour?

♥peachkins♥ said...

amazing cookies!

Donna-FFW said...

Oh the molasses and maple syrup sounds delicious in this cookie. Pass me a few.

motherrimmy said...

Incredible! Healthy and they look delicious. Problem is I would eat them all! :)

Unknown said...

I haven't read your old posts yet.. Is this healthy thing one of your resolutions? The cookies look great anyway. I can never bring myself to bake with articificial sweeteners!

Anonymous said...

The chocolate chip cookies look great. Thanks for doing the Stevia experiments and reporting the results!

Judy said...

They all look delicious!

Megan said...

And you say I'm a bit obsessed with cookies? :)

I haven't tried Stevia yet - but it's definitely on my list. And yes, I'll have to try it with a chocolate chip recipe!

Kayte said...

I learn a ton of information over here...what a great idea to try this and that and see what you like best.

Emily (The Experimentarian) said...

Ay, what a shame the brownies didn't turn out--they LOOK super delicious. But so does everything you make! Can I come to your FHE please?? xoxo

Amanda said...

Everything looks great katrina! Healthy cookies. Isn't that an oxymoron? LMAO

Shandy said...

I feel so proud of you! Practice, practice, practice may go with some frustration but when you hit a recipe right, that one recipe can make all the effort SO worth while. 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies in one night? You are my hero! =)

Mermaid Sews said...

Wow, these are soo cool. I have been trying to eat a low GI diet, and these would work. Thanks! And thanks for the sweet comment.

Eliana said...

These all look so good Katrina. Can't figure out which is my favorite.

Susan said...

They look fabulous, Katrina. I son't have the stevia in the house, but do have the spelt flour. Just used some to make biscuits for my dog. :)

Deborah said...

I could use a healthy cookie recipe!

Martha said...

Love the look of your almost vegan chocolate chip cookies but would definitely make them with succanat. I haven't been able to get to the point where I can say I enjoy baked goods made with stevia.

Chats the Comfy Cook said...

Those cookies have the look of a great chocolate chip cookie. I think with CCC, you can tell how good they are by the way the dough forms.

mike said...

Spelt... I've seen that, along with oat flour and barley flour and others! They LOOK FANTASTIC! Not at all "healthy"! :) I love how you make 14 different variations.... so ambitious!

Anonymous said...

What a great way to "healthify" chocolate chip cookies-and I love including nuts in cookies so this is definitely going into my recipe collection :)

Anonymous said...

Wow what a superb Cookie, I love eating cookies all the time. I use to visit a famous place, its a Kosher Bakery in New York. That is my favorite one.

Lynn said...

wonderful pictures! everything looks scrumptious!

Nathan Reed said...

I've been making this for about two months. The first two batches were great, but now they keep coming out flat. Any ideas why?

Katrina said...

Nathan, hmmm, sorry to hear the cookies have been flat lately. I'm actually not sure why, especially since they worked for you a few times before that.
I would make sure you're weighing/measuring the flour correctly. Which sugar are you using? I wish I could help you more, just making sure ingredients are measured correctly.