Quick Eggless Cookies

It was pretty gloomy outside today. A perfect excuse for a cup of hot tea I'd say (shoutout to Celestial Seaons' Vanilla Honey Camomile!). But I wanted something to go with that tea.

Let's be honest. I'm too lazy to bake a dense almond cake from scratch... Plus I don't have sticks of butter or almond extract. So I stuck with what I knew: single serve cookies.

I was gonna get fancy and label everything you needed to make these cookies with a nice font. But... You know, almost all the labels are faced forward. You guys are smart. I know you can read... And see.

The only questionable things are the items on the far left. The mound of rat-turds in a plastic bag are just small semi-sweet chocolate chips. The taller bag behind it are pecans. And yes, the bowl you'll need is true to size. Just wash, rinse, and dry out your cereal bowl and you're ready to make some cookies from scratch!

You mix all your dry ingredients and toppings first. Thoroughly. I gave mine a spin for 30 seconds to a full minute.

It should form a dough. One a little more cohesive than above... My cookies still turned out, but needed a little more liquid to make them a tad bit better. I just didn't know if I needed to add more milk or oil, and if it would've made a difference which one I added more of.

No matter if your cookie dough turns out right or not, you need to dig in that bowl and form the dough yourself. Like, LITERALLY. Don't make a ball and expect it to flatten out or you'll be bakin' spheres. 

And here was my finished product! Yeah, a cookie's missing. I ate it to see if it turned out okay. I like my cookies crispy, and that's what this recipe aims to do. Just an FYI for the soft cookie-lovers out there. This particular batch was hard to bite, but not impossible to chew. Not crisp, but not a stone either. So... They're tasty and edible, but I can do better!

This recipe is sadly not my own, but from Chocolate Covered Katie. She makes many healthier desserts and I'm ready to try making more of her delicious treats! This one, in particular, can be found here.

Looking at the ingredients, this recipe can easily be made vegan. Just make sure the chocolate chips are vegan, almond milk would substitute cow's milk, and coconut sugar/raw sugar/whatever in substitute of granulated sugar. Not sure where brown sugar stands with vegans, but I've had yummy vegan desserts and foods. I know there's a way!

All-in-all, this is an excellent cookie base to add practically anything you want to the dough: dried cranberries, cinnamon, ginger powder, cocoa powder, sprinkles, nuts... Whatever!

They take no time at all the whip together and bake, and hardly any cleanup (I mean a cereal bowl, three measuring spoons, and a big spoon to stir... Come on now).

Hoping you try giving it a go! And check out Katie's other recipes on her blog through the link I provided for the particular cookies above!

Later, gators.

Cookie Dough Dip with a Bullet

I'm definitely a lover of chocolate chip cookie dough, so when I ran into a recipe for one you could eat straight and guilt-free... I made sure to make it ASAP.

You can scope the recipe here if you want a gander yourself. Within that, I modified it for my circumstance (Magic Bullet vs. quality food processor). It's from a healthy dessert blogger named Chocolate Covered Katie. Believe me, I was quite skeptical myself, until I Googled people's opinions of all her other treats, including this one. Ultimately, she has my trust, and stomach.

But I digress.

I coddled this recipe as if it were a firstborn. I read through pages of reviews on Chocolate Covered Katie's post for alterations people made, as well as any alternatives I would need to make.

For example, she wants you to use a quality food processor. I do not own a food processor, only a Bullet. So for all of my fellow "I-live-in-an-apartment-and-can-barely-make-room-for-a-toaster-on-my-countertops" patrons, I have my altered recipe that I felt needed to share with anyone else who owned a Bullet, or anything else that wasn't a food processing dream. Because one of the more common complaints I saw was the texture being off-putting. But mine was smoooooooth.

One of the first things I did was take all the skins off each and every chickpea. I only saw one complaint about it, but better safe than sorry.

I then thoroughly rinsed small batches of the chickpeas about half a minute for each cluster, to rid of as much bean-y juice as possible.

 

 As another prep step, I blended the oatmeal needed (for thickness, I assume) into a powder ahead of time with my Bullet.

Below, are the exact instructions from Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe. In red, I'll put the changes I made to ensure a smooth, cookie dough, texture:

• 1 1/2 cups chickpeas (I peeled them skins off) or white beans (1 can, drained and rinsed very VERY well) (250g after draining)
• 1/8 tsp plus 1/16 tsp salt
• tiny bit over 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup nut butter of choice I used Mara Natha's Raw Maple Almond Butter (You can get away with using only 3 tbsp. (I'm pretty sure I just used 3 tbsp instead of 1/4 c) If you use peanut butter, it’ll have a slight “pb cookie dough” taste, so if you don’t want this, try the Deep Dish Cookie Pie instead. Just don’t bake it.)
• up to 1/4 cup milk of choice, only if needed I didn't use the full 1/4 cup. I used only half of that 1/4 cup, and honestly could've used a little less than that to make it a tad bit more dough-like. For reference, I used vanilla almond milk.
• Sweetener of choice (see note below, for amount) (I didn't add the note, check her website I linked you to earlier! I used brown sugar)
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips, or these: Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips  (A lot of people, including myself, substituted for mini semi-sweet chocolate chips to get more chocolate in each bite)
  
  • 2 to 3 tbsp oats (Ground flax will also work) I blended the oats before I started mixing anything together.

Baby steps: blending before the blender.

Chocolate Covered Katie's instructions CONT'd:

Add all ingredients (except for chocolate chips) to a good food processor (not blender), and blend until very smooth. I did not do this with my Bullet!! Instead, I mixed all the ingredients pretty well in a bowl first, then blended with my Bullet in small incriments. Then mix in the chocolate chips. My Bullet got hot, and so did the "dough", so I let it chill in the fridge before adding the chips. They just melted otherwise. (Some commenters have had success with a blender, but I did not. Try that at your own risk, and know the results will be better in a high-quality food processor such as a Cuisinart.) If made correctly and blended long enough, this should have the exact texture of real cookie dough! Hence my alternative, alerting, red commentary!

The last thing I saw pretty frequently in the comments section was that it tasted best when chilled for a few hours, or even kept in the freezer for a bit. I saw one person make cookie dough balls with this recipe! Froze them and dipped in tempered chocolate.

I don't know about you, but writing this post has made me hungry. I may whip up a batch in a couple of days (out of vanilla almond milk). I hope you have the confidence to try this dip! It really isn't too difficult at all; the outcome is completely worth it!