*Photo Credit: Olia Gozha
If you like dark chocolate like I do, then you’re going to love this recipe. I call them brownie cookies because it’s simply the best way to describe them; they taste like a rich fudgy brownie, with the texture and shape of a cookie. I don’t eat sweets very often, but when I do, I make sure they’re made from healthy and wholesome ingredients.
You can prepare these cookies using traditional baking ingredients: butter, flour, and eggs, or you can adapt it to be 100% vegan, gluten free, and paleo. All options are presented here so that you can make it to suit your dietary preferences.
You will need
- 1/4 cup flour (white flour, gluten free flour, or almond flour)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 11 ounces 72% dark chocolate, separated into 2 piles of 5.5 ounces each, and chopped finely
- 1 ounce raw cacao butter OR 2 tablespoons grass fed butter
- 1/2 cup good sugar (turbinado, raw cane juice, coconut sugar)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs OR 2 “flax eggs”* (see below)
- 4 ounces walnuts, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 350.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
Boil water in a large pan and remove from heat.
In a pyrex bowl, combine one pile of the chocolate with the butter.
Place the bowl over the pan of boiled water and stir until melted and smooth.
Set the bowl of melted chocolate aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs (regular eggs or “flax eggs”), the sugar, and vanilla extract until mixed well. Place this bowl over the hot water that you just used to melt the chocolate over (it should still be pretty hot) and stir until the mixture is lukewarm to the touch.
Now combine the egg/sugar/vanilla mixture with the melted chocolate and stir until blended.
Next, stir in the flour mixture.
Finally, stir in the chopped nuts and the second pile of chopped chocolate.
Scoop rounded spoonfuls of the batter on a parchment covered cookie sheet; space them about 1.5 inches apart.
Bake until the surface of the cookies looks dry and set, about 12 minutes. You’ll be tempted to eat them while they’re still hot, but do yourself a favor and let them cool off, as they taste the best at room temperature.
*To make “flax eggs”, finely grind 2 tablespoons flax seed. Whisk this together with 6 tablespoons of water. Use this whenever a recipe calls for 2 large eggs.
Happy healthy snacking!
Kita
