baking debut

Believe it or not, my 2 year old son and I had never baked cookies together! Part of this is that I hardly even get to bake anymore, even alone. Too many other things going on! I remember when I would bake these cookies or something else almost every weekend. That was pre-baby. My son has a mini-obsession with the mixer already, so he had a great time. He poured in all the ingredients and turned on and off the mixer.

My son saw this photo later and said, Look spill!" That is what he noticed!

My mini ice-cream scoop and my slipats (although this is not my "true" silpat) are my best baking friends.

You can see one is missing. We had to try them right away!

 Yum!

The basic recipe is from Jessica Seinfeld's much talked about book, Deceptively Delicious. Here's her recipe.


This is my (healthier) variation on her recipe. My changes are in italics, if you want to compare.
Chocolate Chip Cookies with Chickpeas



1c brown sugar


½c apple sauce + 1/4 c flax seed (in place of margarine)


1 large egg


2 tsp vanilla extract


1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (aka garbanzo beans) (no need to mash-they get kind of ground up in the mixer)


bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips


1 cup all purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour (or 1.5 white flour +1/2 cup w.w. flour)


1/2 cup oats (or 1/4 cup old fashioned oats + 1 "bar" crunched up shredded wheat cereal)


1 tsp baking soda


1/2 t salt


Preheat oven to 350


Beat the sugar and butter until smooth


Beat in the egg whites and vanilla, then chickpeas and chocolate chips


Sift in flour, oats, baking soda and salt
Scoop dough with ice cream scoop


Bake 11-13 minutes, careful not to over bake (I take them out early while they are still soft and I love them this way).
Makes 3 dozen
Store in airtight container for up to 3 days. They freeze well too! Take one or two out of the freezer and put in the microwave for a few seconds-heaven!




Variation: add approx 1/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder to the batter to make double chocolate cookies.

I've tried all sorts of variations (soy flour, demura sugar, etc) and they all taste good.
Experiment!