BigBadBob's Blog

Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe I pretty much came up with on my own. I went to Cara for some advice, but for the most part I took guessed on everything and went with the flow. These cookies are a little healthier since I only use one egg, replace 1/2 the usual butter with apple sauce, and use dark chocolate chips as opposed to milk chocolate. A bit of a note though: since I use apple sauce, the cookies will come out softer and won’t get crispy due to the added moisture. It kind of reminded me of a pancake. So if you want a crunchy cookie, this recipe is not for you. If you want a tasty snack that is a little healthier, than this one is for you.

Ingredients:

• 1cup flour
• 1/2tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/2cup granulated sugar
• 1/4cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 8TB Butter/Margarine
• 1/2cup apple sauce (plain- don’t buy the one with cinnamon)
• 1/2tsp vanilla (can be real or imitation)
• 1/2cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/4cup chopped nuts (I use walnuts)

What You Need:

• Mixer
• Mixing bowl
• 1/2 tsp, 1cup, 1/2cup, 1/4cup measuring utensils
• Wooden spoon
• Pam (or other cooking spray)
• Two baking sheets
• Cooling rack
• Cutting board
• Utility knife
• Spoon
• Kitchen Timer

So whenever I’m going to cook, I always take the time to get everything I need out before I actually start. This way I’m not fumbling for something at the last minute with dirty fingers or anything like that. As you see above, I listed all my ingredients and materials, and arranged them on the counter so that everything was out and ready to go. This is definitely an essential step to make cooking and baking as stressless as possible.

So once you have everything together, let’s start making these cookies!

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 375. This will allow it to preheat while you make the dough, so by the time you’re done the oven will be all set.

2. You will be mixing together most of the dry ingredients, which means the flour, baking soda, salt, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Measure out the ingredients and dump them into the mixing bowl.

Once all the ingredients are in, insert the beaters into the mixer (while its unplugged), then plug it in, and mix the ingredients on the lowest setting. As you go, you may see some larger chunks of ingredients, particularly the brown sugar. If this happens, simply take the wooden spoon and manually smash up any of the chunks you come across.

Continue mixing until everything looks pretty well blended together.

3. Add the wet ingredients, meaning the egg, butter, apple sauce and vanilla. For the butter, one stick generally comes out to 8 TB’s. However, to make it work best, you want to soften the butter, not melt it. So I suggest taking it out of the fridge, and when you’re ready to add it, remove it from its wrapping and pop it in the microwave for about ten seconds. This will soften the butter, but it won’t start getting wet and melted, so it will be perfect. Another note is in regards to the vanilla: for some reason, that stuff is expensive as heck! Shell and I usually buy imitation vanilla for a fraction of the cost.

So just go ahead and throw all these ingredients into the mixing bowl, then use the mixer to combine it all together (make sure you use the lowest speed setting!)

Remove the mixer and use a wooden spoon to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then continue mixing until everything is combined and looks like cookie dough (make sure there are no patches of dry mix anywhere.)

4. The final step in making the dough is adding in the chocolate chips and nuts. I used walnuts, but you can use whatever you want. Place some of the nuts on a cutting board, and use a sharp utility knife to finely dice them into manageable pieces…remember, no one wants to find a whole walnut in their cookie. But then again, they are your cookies, so make the nuts as big or small as you want! After you dice a few up, place them into the 1/4 measuring cup and repeat the process until it is full.

After adding the nuts, go ahead and add in the best part…the chocolate chips! You can use any, but dark chocolate is the “healthiest” for you.

Once both the nuts and chocolate chips are in the mixing bowl, pop the mixer in there on low and stir it up one final time to get the chips and nuts evenly dispersed throughout the dough.

5. Once the dough is ready, these cookies are almost ready to go! By now the oven should be preheated to 375. Take one of the baking pans and spray it down with Pam or some other non-stick baking spray.

Then you will begin placing the dough onto the pan. Take a melon baller or some other small scooping device (if you have nothing fancy like that, a regular spoon will work just fine), and use one scoop per cookie. So you will place it into the dough, take a scoop out, and then place it on the baking pan.

With my pan, I fit sixteen cookies on there, making four rows of four. You can fit more on there if you want smaller cookies, or less if you want bigger ones. Just leave some space around each cookie, so that when they cook and expand they won’t get all stuck together (I should take my own advice, as you will soon see.)

6. So now it’s time to bake! Place the cookies in the oven, and set your timer for ten minutes.

Now, with all the dough we made, you will have more in the bowl still, enough for a second baking sheet. I highly recommend only cooking one batch (one baking sheet) at a time, to ensure that the temperature remains correct. So while the first batch is cooking, you can go ahead and pan up the second batch. Scrape every last drop out of the bowl to make sure you get as many cookies as possible. When you get to the end, use a regular spoon to grab the rest.

I got thirteen cookies out of the second batch, meaning I got a total of twenty nine cookies. You can get more or less depending on how big you make your cookies (and how much cookie dough you snack on during the cookie process!)

Once the cookies are all panned up, it’s time to clean up. I am a neat freak, and even though I tend to make a mess when I cook, I go nuts cleaning it up at the end. So pop all your dirty utensils and other stuff in the sink and start scrubbing. What else are you going to do while you wait for your tasty cookies to finish baking? Also, make sure you wipe down the counters, stove, and other areas you were working on.

7. Once the ten minutes is up, take the cookies out and check them out. They should be a dark brown and…well, you should know what a cookie looks like! To test to make sure they are done, stick a butter knife into the middle of a cookie and check to see if there’s any batter on there. If there is, put the cookies back in for a minute or so and check again. Both my batches were done within ten minutes.

Here’s my first batch. As you can see, I definitely placed them too close together, and they stuck. That’s not such a big deal though…just take a spatula and separate them. They won’t come out as perfect circles, but as long as they taste delicious who cares how they look. As you can see, my second batch came out a little better.

Once you take them out, DO NOT take them off the baking sheet immediately. They need to cool on the baking sheet before you remove them, or they will be way too soft, and will fall apart. Give them about ten minutes, and then carefully use a spatula to remove them and placing them on a cooling rack or separate plate.

Once they are cooled off, enjoy!