My posting has slowed down a bit, sorry! My life has been very hectic and stressful lately and it’s a bit hard to find time to post. You will probably see shorter posts but I should be able to post more often. Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
One of the thing I like to do is take a pre-existing recipe and try to make it healthier. I actually like healthy food but unfortunately for me I also like unhealthy food. I don’t discriminated, I’m an equal opportunity eater. ;) Anyways, this recipe is a healthyfied version of the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of a bag of milk chocolate chipits. The original is here.
Whee! I’ve discovered the joys of Picasa so now I’m playing around with making collages. Here are the ingredients I decided to sub in: buckwheat flour, flax meal (basically ground flax seeds), dried coconut and dried cranberries. When subbing in dried ingredients you can generally sub in an equal amount. As an interesting note we get our buckwheat flour from a stone mill nearby. It’s the oldest working stone mill in North America and grinds everything old school, with water power and giant stone plates.
Instead of using brown sugar like in the original recipe, I used agave nectar which is a lot sweeter than sugar so you can use a smaller amount; I used 1 cup of agave to sub for 2 cups of brown sugar. The only problem with agave is that since it is liquid you will have to add extra flour in order to make sure that your recipe isn’t too runny. There were also eggs.
Not to be forgotten, the baking power, baking soda, milk chocolate chips and vanilla extract. At the end after I had mixed everything together I added more flour until everything had come together.
Another shot of the texture of the cookies.
I cooked them around 10-12 minutes until they were starting to brown. Since buckwheat is so dark it’s a bit hard to tell when they’re browning though.
I love the bright red colour of the cranberries. Unlike whole wheat flour which can produce very dense cookies, buckwheat produces light almost crumbly cookies. It has a nice nutty taste so it add an extra layer of taste. I also loved the taste of the flax seed meal, it adds texture as well. Don’t get me wrong, I love white flour chewy chocolate chip cookies like everyone else but sometimes it is nice to go for something different. They’re quite filling because of the whole grains and they make a good snack to take to work.
