Let’s start the weekend with chocolate. With cookies. With chocolate chip cookies. RAW chocolate chip cookies. These are a new favorite recipe and one I find myself making excuses to make on a weekly basis. Birthday? ‘Thank you’ gift for a client? Because the day ended in a “y”? I never thought I would like a healthy version of chocolate chip cookies. Honestly, whole wheat chocolate chip cookies are awful. Even the half-whole wheat / half-white are barely palatable. My standards for the humble chocolate chip cookie are high. Why? My dad made it a personal mission to perfect the chocolate chip cookie when I was growing up. Our kitchen frequently smelled of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. The man makes one mean chocolate chip cookie.
With those childhood memories in mind I was hesitant to try the raw food version of my beloved chocolate chip cookie when the opportunity presented itself. Really, how could it compare to the butter-laden version I had loved as a child? A morning at Matthew Kenney’s newest concept - M.A.K.E. OUT - changed my mind. Their version of the chocolate chip cookie was decadent. Simple, yet complex in the sense that every ingredient was fully present and delicious. A grown-up chocolate chip cookie. The best healthy-for-you-cookie I have ever tasted. With that taste in mind I decided to tackle making my own batch at home. Famous last words.
Since attending the intro to raw cooking weekend intensive at the Matthew Kenney culinary academy in Santa Monica I’ve experienced a new surge of bravado in the kitchen. Learning how to use what I already have in my kitchen to make raw recipes that I once found intimidating. I learned the importance of not being so rigid about the fundamentals of raw, especially in the beginning. The sweet spot – with anything in life – is learning to be happy with each morsel of knowledge gained along the way (you knew I was going to bust out a pun or two, right?).
The ingredients – simple and straightforward: cacao nibs, oats, cashews and coconut. My variation of this recipe uses coconut because I love coconut. You can omit it if you don’t care for it or don’t have it on hand. Just add extra cashew or oat flour in in its place to keep the right consistency. A word on cacao nibs - invest in bulk!
Other important note: this is a cookie that slowly bakes at a very low temp – keeping its “raw” properties. My recommendation is to make this early in the day or later in the evening and letting it do its thing in the oven overnight – at its lowest setting (mine is 150°, for example) if you don’t have a dehydrator, like me. More notes on this in the recipe directions at the end of the post.
I don’t have room for kitchen tools I would rarely use. In fact, since I’ve moved into my little spot in Venice I’ve only made my own green juice at home ONCE because it’s simply a pain in the ass with the lack of counter space. And because there’s a super old-school, hippie, mom-n-pop grocer just a few blocks away that makes a ridic spicy, organic green juice for the low price of $4.50 for 16 oz – THIS IS UNHEARD OF PEOPLE! I have a decent blender (not a fancy-schmancy Blendtec or Vitamix yet – it’s a KitchenAid) and a coffee grinder. If you have either of these tools, you can make this recipe.
Make the cashew flour in your blender with the pulse setting. You want it to be fine, but don’t let it turn into cashew butter. The coffee grinder can be used to finely mill both the oats and the coconut flakes into flours. Combine all the ingredients – this is what it looks like:
The sticky-sticky: you can use agave or maple syrup. A dash of vanilla. The outcome from all your barely hard work is this pictured below: crumbl-y and a little sticky. It’s not the dough you would expect making a cookie, but it works – I promise.
To get the pretty shapes you see above I sprayed the inside of my measuring cup (the 1/4 cup) and pressed the dough in firmly with a spoon. Then slowly tapped it the cookie – a gentle coaxing, if you will – onto the baking sheet. Finally – let’s get to the recipe, shall we? Mine is a modified version of this original recipe.
Ingredients
- 2 cups fine cashew flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted
- 1-1/3 cups oat flour, sifted
- 1/3 cup maple syrup or agave syrup
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
- 1 cup raw chocolate chips or cacao nibs
Directions
- Make your flours – coconut flour, oat flour (you can make this with oats on hand if you have them or oat flour if you want to buy it) and coconut flour if you’re using it in the recipe (omit and use cashews or oats as needed).
- Blend the dry ingredients in a bowl, except for the sea salt.
- Stir in the chips and the syrup and vanilla.
- Blend by hand.
- Form into 3-inch cookies (or use my method outlined above) and sprinkle with sea salt.
- Dehydrate overnight at 118 degrees or in your dehydrator OR use your oven at its lowest setting a leave the oven door slightly open to keep it as close to the 118° mark as you can.
- Ummm… eat, enjoy, REPEAT!!
Let me know if you try it and what you think of the recipe. Of course my barometer for success will be making and sharing a batch of these with my dad when I see him in June. Ending this post with a “Hi Dad!” and “Guess what you’re getting for Father’s Day?”!
