BAKING BACKWARDS: protein

Chocolate Chip Quinoa Cookies (vegan, gluten free, grain-free, soy-free)

3:04 PM

I love making traditional desserts a little bit healthier. These delicious and moist Chocolate Chip Quinoa cookies are a perfect example.

Loaded with chocolate chips and chunks I wouldn't call these cookies totally innocent, but they are way better for you than traditional chocolate chip cookies. They're also suitable for vegans, people who avoid grains and soy, and gluten intolerant folks. They're easy to make and made with nutritious and high-protein flours like quinoa and buckwheat, alternative sweeteners like coconut sugar, and better-for-you fats like coconut oil.

I threw this recipe together on a whim last weekend and it was a hit in my house. My husband ate most of the cookies in a day (which rarely happens these days as he tries to limit his dessert intake). I was shocked and amazed by how much he enjoyed these as I really didn't know how they'd turn out (and he's a bit of a cookie purist). This recipe is definitely going to be made again and again.

I also made a youtube recipe video so you can follow along with me. Please check it out and subscribe to my channel for more. I plan to make many more videos this year, provided I can find the time.

I hope you like these cookies as much as we did!

Quinoa chocolate chip cookies
Yields 9 large cookies, or 12-16 small cookies

1 cup quinoa flour
1/3 cups buckwheat flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup coconut sugar
Stevia (to sweeten to your taste and reduce the overall sugar content of the recipe)
2 tbsp liquid sweetener
1/4 cup of water or non dairy milk
Big pinch of good salt
1-2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp cocoa powder
1/3 cup coconut oil (opt for room temperature, softened but not liquid)
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips or a mix

*For chewier cookies include 1 flax "egg"*

Step 1:
Preheat oven to 350F.

Add coconut oil, olive oil, vanilla, sugar, liquid sweetener, cocoa, cinnamon and stevia to large mixing bowl. Whisk or blend with a hand mixer until fluffy. Blend in flax "egg" if using.

Step 2:
Add in remaining dry ingredients (not chocolate), stirring together by hand until well mixed. Then stir in water or non dairy milk until a smooth dough forms.

Step 3:
Stir in chopped chocolate or chocolate chips until well distributed. Cover and chill 30 minutes in fridge (optional).

Step 4:
Line or grease a baking sheet or two. Scoop chilled or un-chilled dough out and drop on to sheet, leaving space around each cookie to allow them to spread. Bake in preheated oven for 10-11 minutes. Serve warm!

Double Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies (vegan, gluten free, soy-free, nut-free, grain-free)

10:43 AM

BBQ Caulifower Wings (vegan, gluten free, oil free)

9:00 AM

PB Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free, vegan, oil-free)

9:00 AM

Porridge (Made Super!)

12:00 AM

It's that time of the month again, the Recipe Redux Challenge! This month's theme was Food Memories made healthier. At first I was planning on making some shortbread cookies from my childhood. My Oma (grandma) used to bake them with me at this time of year, but I've been feeling a little too weepy about family lately having had a few deaths in the family in the past year or two. So instead I wanted to celebrate a childhood memory that involves a living relative, my Dad.

Growing up my Dad cooked most of the daily family meals. He loves to cook. Technically my mom likes it too but Holiday celebrations are her domain while day to day was all my Dad. I loved to cook since I was very little so as soon as I was allowed, I would give him a hand whenever he would accept. He made wonderful stews, pastas, pizzas, salads, nachos (!) and so much more. For breakfast he was a bit of a creature of habit. Being Scottish, he grew up eating oats often. He still warmly recalls eating a bowl of hot oats each morning topped with the fresh cream from the cows his family raised. He says its one of his fondest childhood memories. My memory today is not that organic I guess, but it involves oats and a daily breakfast routine!

Growing up my Dad and I ate breakfast together almost every day. It invariably involved fruit, yogurt and oats, though often just a big bowl or two of hot oatmeal. With modern times he started to microwave his oats to a much denser cake like breakfast he then topped with either brown sugar or maple syrup and a little milk. I followed suit, if my Dad liked it, it was good enough for me! So oats became a familiar breakfast I ate almost daily into highschool.

By University I stopped eating oats because in residence I was given eggs instead. When I struck out on my own I stuck to faster breakfasts like Shreddies cereal and yogurt. But when the weather gets cold like it has here lately I still dream of hot oats once in awhile.

A few years ago I was living in a very drafty apartment. I was doing a lot of night activities (playing the drums mainly) and I would come home starving and cold. I would eat a big salad sometimes with cheese or some other protein like chickpeas, devour it and then grab a pot and lovingly prepare some oats on the stove and top them with maple syrup and milk. It was my favourite part of my day by far.

When I developed gluten intolerance oats turned on me a little. They started to sap my energy and really upset my stomach. These days I'll occasionally eat some wheat-free oats but I still wind up with the same issue so lately I just avoid them. Thankfully you can make porridge without them! Today's recipe is for my favourite porridge. I think its a much healthier take on the oats of my childhood. I use quinoa flakes for protein and a gluten free base, stevia and maple syrup sweeten it, and virgin coconut oil and a little vanilla make it rich and flavorful. If you're trying to lose some weight, quinoa and coconut oil and great dietary staples to include. Both help you burn fat and build lean muscle. I eat this delicious porridge a lot on weekends and sometimes on cold nights when I've had a long day. Its one of my favourite things ever.

If you have tried quinoa flakes and don't like the taste, try them this way, the add ins in my recipe make this porridge taste much better than if you added nothing and cooked them straight up. The sweet and rich flavours mask the natural bitterness of the quinoa perfectly.

Quinoa Porridge (with maple, vanilla and coconut oil)

1.25-1.5 cups water
1/2 cup or more quinoa flakes
2 tsp apple butter or apple sauce (the pectin in this ingredient helps the porridge thicken)
pinch baking soda or sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract (or more)
liquid stevia (to taste)
2.5 tsp virgin coconut oil
1 tsp maple syrup (plus 1-2 tsps as a topping)

Heat the water and quinoa flakes over high heat, stirring until they get thicker and absorb half the liquid. Reduce heat to medium low, add the apple butter and stir in well, this will thicken it up more. Add the spices, baking soda or salt, 1 tsp maple and the coconut oil and stir in well until the oil melts in.

Keep stirring until you achieve your desired thickness. Then stir in the vanilla and as much stevia as you would like, tasting after each addition of a small amount (you don't need a lot since you will top this porridge with maple syrup). I add enough stevia to mask the bitterness of the quinoa but not overpower it.

Transfer finished mixture to a bowl and top with the extra maple syrup. Enjoy!

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Chocolate Chip/Chunk Power Cookies

8:21 PM

Ok, so these chocolate chip/chunk power cookies are a bit amazing. For the past few years I have seen a host of recipes on the internet from various sources for chickpea chocolate chip cookie dough. cookies, blondies and cookie pies but for some reason I never got on board with the trend. Possibly because I was worried that I would make a batch and end up with chocolate chip hummus. Pass.

Luckily for me I got past my hesitation and created my own spin on the mighty chickpea chocolate chip cookie last week. I took some time before diving in though -- I read a ton of different recipes looking for patterns and flaws, trying to see if I could prevent any shortcomings in these cookies. I noticed many versions (possibly all) insisted on using a fair bit of nut butter. I imagine this is common because cookies need both a binder and a fat source but if I wanted a chocolate chip cookie to taste like peanut butter I would make a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. Many recipes called for loads of sugar but I knew I could easily cut back on it if I used dates and wouldn't need as much nut butter if I used the dates in combination with some virgin coconut oil as they would act as a binder as well. Many recipes recommended rinsing and drying the chickpeas thoroughly before blending them -- probably to avoid overly mushy or hummus-like soft cookies. By using the dry chickpea technique, and by adding some virgin coconut oil to my cookie dough, I was confident that I could make some nice and dense cookies. Several recipes called for eggs but a flax egg tends to work instead and adds a nice nuttiness to most baked goods so it would be a great addition to cookies. I wanted these cookies to be vegan so flax eggs were essential to my recipe. Many recipes involved oats or flour (again to avoid creating hummus) but I wanted these to be grain-free cookies so I decided I would use quinoa flakes instead (quinoa is not a grain, it is a seed from a grass) since they work so nicely in my breakfast cookies which also would turn to mush without them. All the recipes I found called for chocolate chips but I decided to step my version up a notch with my homemade chocolate chunks (recipe included below) which I usually have in my freezer. They are delicious and naturally sweetened with coconut sugar (a low glycemic sweetener) and a bit of maple syrup. But don't worry if you don't have the time to make your own (though it takes very little time!), just go ahead and substitute store-bought chocolate chips or chunks to make this recipe.

My homemade chocolate chunks

With all these assumptions and interpretations in hand, I set out to make some seriously high protein, naturally sweetened chocolate chip cookies with a nice sturdy texture. Guess what -- it totally worked! These are hands down some of the best healthy cookies I have ever made and I highly recommend giving them a try.

Chocolate Chunk Power Cookies hot from the oven

These cookies are pretty virtuous. They don't involve any flour, refined sugar, butter or eggs. They are high in protein thanks to the pumpkin seed butter I used and the can of chickpeas that make up the bulk of the cookie dough. They are sweetened with a few dates and unsweetened pear butter (both are fruit), a little coconut sugar (a low-glycemic index natural sweetener), and a touch of maple syrup (a natural sweetener) rather than cup after cup of white sugar. They use virgin coconut oil which is a medium chain triglyceride fat (which is easily converted to energy by your liver and stays stable in high heat cooking rather than becoming a trans fat). They are grain-free, gluten-free and totally vegan (I didn't even sneak any raw honey into this recipe as I tend to most of the time). I am so convinced of the benefits of these cookies that I ate two for breakfast today -- no grains and no regrets.

These cookies offer a pretty perfect cookie texture. Hot out of the oven they are a bit soft for my taste but toss them in the fridge to cool and they come out as sturdy as any butter-overload chocolate chip cookie I've encountered, and in the cool of the fridge their flavor gets better and better.

My husband loved these little cookies so much he ate the leftovers for his breakfast today as well. That's how I know this recipe is a keeper as he and I don't always agree that a healthy dessert is sweet enough or reminiscent of a classic dessert enough. He agrees that they have great texture -- almost like Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies after they cool down a bit. Their texture reminds me a lot of the delicious Monsieur Felix and Mr. Norton cookies and the enormous cookies sold at Second Cup (if you're Canadian!).

The cookie dough could easily be made into blondies by baking it in a baking pan like a brownie. The dough (minus the quinoa flakes which add a bitterness before baking) is delicious too and could be used as a cookie dough dip or snack, or whizzed into a vegan ice cream base for chocolate chip cookie dough flavor. I plan to try all of the above and report back. For now, go bake yourselves some cookies, pronto!

Homemade Chocolate Chunks

(vegan, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free)

¼ - ⅓ cup solid cacao paste
1 tsp size hunk solid cacao butter
1.5-2 tbsp (level) solid virgin coconut oil
2.5 tbsp coconut sugar (or more if you want your chocolate sweeter)
2 tbsp maple syrup
small pinch pink salt
½ tsp cinnamon

OPTIONAL FOR MILK CHOCOLATE CHUNKS:

2-3 tsp coconut cream (the solids that separate from a can of coconut milk, or the solids from a can of coconut cream) (not to be confused with creamed coconut)

Grab a small saucepan. Add the cacao paste, virgin coconut oil, and cacao butter. Place over the second lowest heat setting and melt gently, stirring with a whisk slowly. Once fully melted, whisk in coconut sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Remove from heat and quickly whisk in the maple syrup. Taste. Add extra maple syrup if necessary.

If making milk chocolate:

Whisk in the coconut cream until you don’t see any white streaks. Taste, whisk in extra maple syrup if not sweet enough.

Grab a small bread plate and cover it completely with a piece of parchment paper. Pour your chocolate mixture onto the center of the plate and gently form a circle by spreading it out evenly with the back of a spoon. Place the plate on a flat surface in your freezer. After about 20-30 minutes your chocolate will be set.

Once your chocolate has set in your freezer, take out the plate and chop the now solid disk of chocolate into small chunks, I try to make them roughly the same size but do whatever you like.

WARNING ABOUT THIS RECIPE:

Chocolate separates easily if heated too high and if whisked too much. When this happens it cannot be reversed, making the chocolate grainy.

For the purpose of chocolate chunks your chocolate will still taste fine even if it separates so you can freeze it anyway and use it.

Chocolate Chunk Power Cookies

(grain-free, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free, vegan, high protein, high fiber)

Makes 12-15 healthy cookies

1 can organic chickpeas (398ml), rinsed drained and dried (using a towel)
1/4 cup quinoa flakes
1-2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 small pinches pink salt or sea salt (depending on how salty you like your cookie dough)
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1/3 -1/2 cup chocolate chips or chunks
2 tbsp nut or seed butter of choice (natural, I used pumpkin seed butter)
1 tbsp golden flax meal
2 tsp pear or apple butter
1.5 tbsp virgin coconut oil
2-4 tbsp maple syrup (depending on how sweet you like your cookies)
3-4 small pitted dates (30g)
2 tbsp coconut sugar (a low GI natural sweetener)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp evoo

Preheat oven to 350F

In a food processor, blend everything except chocolate and quinoa flakes together until smooth. Taste, adjusting sweetness and nuttiness to your taste with more coconut sugar or maple syrup or nut/seed butter.

Add quinoa flakes and chocolate chips / chunks and pulse to distribute through the dough.

Place spoonfuls of the mix onto parchment lined baking sheet. For flat cookies, flatten gently with back of a spoon and bake 10-15 minutes in oven preheated to 350F until edges are brown. Be careful not to bake for too long or the bottoms will burn. The cookies don’t have to be rock solid, they will solidify more as they cool.

These cookies taste better and have better texture when they fully cool. After they cool to room temperature, I like to wrap them up in the parchment paper and store them in my fridge where the texture and flavor improves.