Little rewards

Everyone knows I'm an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie kinda girl. No, let's not jump to specifics. I'm an oatmeal cookie kinda girl-forget the chocolate chip, peanut butter's just as good. But the whole Liver Detox and Low Allergy thing has some downsides, especially when it comes to cookies. Baking cakes with substitutes or muffins even, is not too big a deal, I might even find it better to eat. I feel better eating it and I have heaps of fun baking it. But the few attempts of low-fat cookie baking hasn't reeaaalllyyy worked out for me. Maybe til this one...it's not low fat or anything but definitely better for you, because the fat in it might have some benefits. I was inspired by Cooking Well's tahini chocolate chip cookies and Baking Bite's entry on baking chewy cookies and decided that I deserved some oatmeal chewychocochuck cookies but I really didn't want to feel bad so I came up with this!...

wheat-free chewychocochuck with tahini (makes 24-27)
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup rice flour
1 heaping tablespoon potato flour (starch)
1/2 tsp xantham gum
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 tbsp tahini
5 tbsp almond butter (storebought or home-made)
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp raw sugar*
1 egg
water*
75g dark chocolate
1/3 cup chopped up dried dates
1 1/2 cup wholegrain rolled oats

1) combine first 5 ingredients together in a bowl, set aside
2) In another bowl, whisk butter, oil, tahini and almond butter together until smooth.
3) Add in egg and vanilla extract and whisk to comebine
4) Mix in the flours (mixture will be veryvery sticky)
5) Add in the oats and stir to combine, add 1-2 tbsp of water if too sticky
6) Add in chocolate and dates and mix well, adding 1-2 tbsp water to assist in mixing.
7) Bake at 175 degrees celcius for 12 minutes or longer if a crispier cookie is desired.
>The longer you bake it (16-17 min), the more chewy the dates will be, a little like raisins.

*I didn't add sugar when I baked mine and the bits without dates or chocolate were a little bland therefore I suggest adding a few tablespoons of raw sugar
**The cookies can even be gluten-free if GF rolled oats are used!
***I added peanut butter to half a batch but there wasn't much difference in the final texture so..save your calories!=)

Walnut Chocolate Roughs

I'm awful when it comes to resisting chocolate, it almost makes me feel incomplete without it really. But I know I'll feel terribly awful if I did eat dairy much worse, chocolate, so I decided to make Walnut Chocolates but substitute the chocolate with this amazing dark gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate. Lo n' Behold, the chocolates didn't work out. Here's why...

I was supposed to roll teaspoonfuls of a walnut paste (made from processing 100g walnuts, 1/2 cup icing sugar and 2 tsp egg whites) into balls and then dip them into the dark chocolate but the walnut paste mixture seemed too dry and kept falling apart when I tried rolling it over and over again. But I had already melted the chocolate and I couldn't waste a perfectly fragrant walnut mixture so I dumped all of the walnut paste mixture, 3/4 cups of wholegrain rolled oats and 1/3 cups sweetened shredded coconut into the chocolate and mixed them all together, dropped them by rounded tablespoonfuls on a baking sheet and let it sit til it set. YUMMMYYY...

Walnut Chocolate Roughs

1 portion walnut paste (recipe below)*
3/4 cup wholegrain rolled oats
1/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut (I use McKenzies)
100g dark soy chocolate
chopped apricots, pawpaw, orange peel, crushed almonds**

1) Mix all together and drop by rounded 1/2 tablespoonfuls onto a baking sheet and place in fridge to set.

*Walnut Paste:
100g walnuts
1/3 cup icing sugar
3 tsp egg whites

1) Process walnuts until finely ground
2) Add in icing sugar and egg whites and process until a moist paste like mixture forms, chill in the fridge for 15 minutes

**These ingredients are optional, they're just additions I thought I might add if I had them on hand...I'm especiall inclined towards the orange peel. =) JAFFAS!

Have fun guys!

Low-er fat Chewychocochuck Oatmeal Cookies

Everyone's got a favourite cookie. Some like the melt-in-your-mouth type of shortbread or like a huge flat crispy chocolate speckled cookie while others may like a beautifully colored buttery sugar cookie. I'm more of a chewy cookie kinda girl. Chewy and oaty. Something about oatmeal cookies make me wanna just eat more. Might be the fact that some of the un-softened oats provide a great workout for your tongue and you try to fish them out from the back of your mouth or maybe it's just that it lasts a little longer because you've gotta chew. Don't know and honestly, don't care. hahaha! I just know that when I crave cookies, it's usually this cookie and it's bad, because it'll clog my arteries and one day I won't be able to move or bake them ever again. So, I made them low fat. hahahhaha and they're not half bad.

But seriously, because I know they're lower in fat, I just wanna eat more. But judging by the fact that the entire batch of 30 over cookies has less butter than 12 of their fattier counterparts, I feel a whole lot lighter, no I meant, better =)

3 tbsp butter (use margarine if you want)
5 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup applesauce, I used sweetened (if using unsweetened, add more sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp caster sugar
3/4 a.p flour*
3/4 almond meal*
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
2 tbsp fat-free milk (I used fat-free soy milk)
1.5 tsp vanilla
3 cups wholegrain oats
1 cup addition of choice: chocolate chunks/ raisins/ white choc/ apricots/ nuts

1) Cream butter, p.b and sugars together
2) Add in applesauce, milk, egg and vanilla, mix well
3) Add in flour, almond meal and baking soda
4) Add in oats and your addition of choice (Mine's chopped up chocolate)
5) Drop by tbspfuls onto baking sheet and bake at 175 degrees celcius for 10 minutes or so
6) EAT alot of them and be happy. =)

*You can replace all of the almond meal with flour. I just prefer using almond meal

I obviously added in more peanut butter because I am a PB FREAK and next time, I'm adding in raisins and cinnamon and white choc chunks instead of dark&milk choc. So there, lower fat-not really. heh!

*UPDATE: I just ate these when they've cooled and they're alot tougher so it's not good but I suppose you could always toast them for a cookie thats crunchy and filled with melty chocolate bits. =)

Chewy Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

Say 'chewy chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies' reallly quickly and it ends up sounds like chewychocochuck oatmeal cookies. Yeah, sounds pretty darn good still! Well, I was being all excited yesterday and decided to bake a batch of apple pie muffins for MuffinMonday03 so I used my new cookbook, the one I got for $2.95 on my way to uni. It's one of those small little books that doesn't have the face of a superchef celebrity or overly glossy photos that you could eat out of the page but it still held promise for me. Like it might contain some little secret this lady never told anyone and I got to find it out. Okay so maybe it's unfair to blame it on the author but the muffins tasted like CARDBOARD. I know it probably is alot due to my own fault, i DID substitute half the butter for applesauce, and i forgot to put the eggs in and did it right at the end. Okay, fine, I admit, it's my fault. The apple slices I placed on top and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar tasted really good though. So, thanking god i only baked a batch of 6 muffins (half the recipe), I picked all the apple slices off and threw the rest out. I'm not in an apple-y mood anymore. I might try Orange Poppy Seed muffins or Chocolate Cinnamon muffins instead. OOOH! I'm getting all inspired now. =)

So, faced with the disappointment and a stomach hungry for something buttery and bad for me, I decided I have had enough of wanting to eat chewy oatmeal cookies and decided to BAKE them. Oh and Cookie Madness doesn't really help and since I read the blog 10 times a day over and over again (god, I'm like a freaking stalker), I just needed and i mean, NEEDED to bake my favourite chewychocochuck oatmeal cookies. Funny, I tried baking them for Chinese New Year this year as gifts for people but they turned out less than perfect. Might be Australia or the fact that my modified recipe was here, but the cookies are just more Aussie inclined. I have had 12 of these cookies in the last 12 hours. thats 200 calories times 12. oh, I think I've exceeded my daily calorie intake. Might as well have one more...

My Favourite ChewyChocoChuck Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 cups quick-cooking oats*
couverture dark chocolate (chopped into chunks, i heart chunks)*
milk chocolate (chopped into chunks)*
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter*

1)Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2)Add in eggs one at a time, mix well, then add in extracts, mix well again
3)Add in baking soda, spelt flour and almond meal, mix well
4)Add in the chunks of chocolate and the quick cooking oats and mix until your arm falls off (kidding)
5)Finally, add in the peanut butter and swirl it around!
6)Bake at 180 for 12 minutes? I can't remember, until the edges brown and it cooks more on cooling. Don't wait until it's completely brown then you'll have a really hard cookie.
7) STORE IN AN AIRTIGHT CONTAINER. I love tupperware. I'm turning into my mom.=)

*You can use normal rolled oats, just not instant. Apparently, the difference between rolled oats and quick cooking is just the thickness of the oats. I can't find quick-cooking oats in Singapore, maybe thats why they weren't as yummy when I baked them there.
*You decide how much chocolate you wanna dump in, you can use white chocolate and almonds or add in some cocoa powder or raisins or cinnamon...you get the picture.
*Peanut butter is optional but everyone loves peanut butter...=)