Bariatric Foodie Play with your food
C is for COOKIES! Yayyyyy!
It’s that time again, Foodies. Now I’ve posted several cookie recipes over the years, but last year was the first year I released an official “cookie collection” with an e-book download. (Pssst…if you missed last year’s, go here and get it!)
You guys seemed to like that. So I’m doing it again!
But first, let’s have the obligatory “cookie talk”:
- Yes, I do eat cookies. Both regular and “modified.” I’m ok with that. Whether you are ok with that for yourself is up to you. Don’t judge my process, and I won’t judge yours, k?
- But I do recognize that cookies will always be a treat. No matter how you make them, cookies are an indulgence. So that’s why…
- My cookie recipes tend to be free of white flour, with no-added sugar (meaning there may be sugar present from milk or fruit) and they are small batch meaning the recipe yields about 10(ish) cookies. Just enough for you to have a few, share a few, and then they are out of your orbit!
Having said that…let’s talk about this year’s cookie selections.
I had a few goals going into my cookie collection this year. Namely:
- I wanted all the recipes to have common ingredients. Because nobody has time to shop for 457 ingredients for just a few cookie recipes!
- I wanted at least one recipe to have added protein. And precisely one recipe does. Protein powder in cookies is a tricky thing. I find it gets in the way of the texture that I like. But I have provided one recipe for you to play around with!
- I wanted to try to cut down on the butter. Now understand that cookies need fat to become cookies. I think there are fat-free cookies out there. I don’t trust them! The science behind fat in cookies is solid. (Do you see what I did there?) Now normally the fat in cookies comes from two places: the egg yolks and butter. So this year, I tried out a few alternative sources of fat for my cookies. I think they worked out pretty well.
With that said…let’s get into this year’s cookie collection!
Cranberry Orange Vanilla Almond
This cookie violates my “no more than three adjectives in a food name” rule, but I forgive myself. This cookie has a lot going on, so let’s talk about it.
First off, spoiler: This is the cookie with protein. BariatricPal Protein One, to be specific.
Because this cookie has protein, its texture is slightly cakey (check the pic below for the height on these suckers!). Also, I had this sneaking suspicion that if I had enough fat in the recipe, I could skip the egg and use the protein powder as my protein. I was right! What you see above is the result.
Now the first two times I made this, I added wayyyyy too much sweetener to the dough and I didn’t like it as a result. The final version has a bit of sweetener, but not too crazy. Keep in mind the protein has sweetener in it. I also (mistakenly but it turned out to be yummy) used honey flavored almond butter in my batter. So. There’s also that.
Speaking of almond butter, that was one of the “alternative fats” I used. That worked out well since there I also used almond flour as one of the two kinds of flour in the cookie. The other kind I used was quinoa flour, which – surprise upon surprises! – I found at Wal-Mart.
With regards to the orange, I used a combo of orange zest and the juice from the orange. You could also use a packet of True Orange and that would work just fine.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
This is a favorite cookie from my childhood. I’ve had it in my mind’s eye for quite some time. And it’s easy enough to make. You might remember I’ve made an oatmeal raisin cookie before so I do know that you don’t need white flour in an oatmeal cookie.
I did also use almond butter in this recipe. And again, the flavor was easily masked, especially because I added a generous dash of cinnamon to the mix. Pumpkin pie spice would also be nice here.
This cookie recipe does contain an egg since there is no protein powder. I am sure there are other ways to make cookies work without eggs. And I’m sure some of you will share them in the comments!
Cream Cheese Salted Caramel Shortbread
This cookie took a little bit of detective work. Because I knew I what I wanted to accomplish. And it wasn’t very hard. Shortbread cookies are the cookies I always recommend to folks who never make cookies from scratch. In the simplest recipes there are, like, four ingredients. But the caramel part had me stumped for a minute. I had this idea of doing a soft caramel chew in the center right before it was fully baked in order to achieve the salted caramel. It took a little hunting, but Werther’s Original to the rescue! I found their soft caramel chews and they worked like a CHARM.
As far as the cream cheese goes, I like it. It gives the cookie a cream, rich texture. I was a bit nervous about that against the caramel, thinking it should have fruit. But I did a fruity thumbprint last year. No repeats!
