Chef Laura Lea Bryant made Hungry Girl Chocolate Chunk Cookies (see recipe below). Laura Lea's new cookbook, Simply Laura Lea, comes out in April, and is available now for pre-order with lots of bonus gifts. Get all the details online at https://www.simplylauralea.com/ and follow @lauraleabalanced on Instagram. Get more healthy recipes online at www.llbalanced.com
Hungry Girl Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Hands-on time: 25 minutes
Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Yield: 18-20 cookies
Dry Ingredients:
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
½ cup rolled oats1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda½ teaspoon sea salt
Mix-Ins:
¾ cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate (sub ¾ cup chocolate chips)
½ cup shredded coconut½ cup pecans, chopped into ¼” pieces
½ packed cup pitted medjool dates, chopped into ¼” pieces
Wet Ingredients:
¾ cup coconut sugar (sub 10 tablespoons monkfruit sweetener)
1 large room temperature egg10 tablespoons melted coconut oil or butter (sub 5 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce for half of the butter or coconut oil. Batter will be slightly more wet but that’s OK)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
TIP: If you mix your dry ingredients first when baking, you don’t have to worry about washing and drying your whisk before moving on to the wet.
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a baking sheet with nonstick parchment paper.
Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk to incorporate. Stir in all of the mix-ins.
Combine all wet ingredients in another mixing bowl and whisk until the mixture becomes a slightly lighter color and fluffier texture, 30 seconds or so.
Add wet ingredients to dry and use clean hands or a spatula to incorporate into a dough--NOTE: it will seem too dry, but just keep mixing. This is not a wet dough.
Use approximately 2 ½ tablespoons to form balls of dough and place them on the baking sheet, with at least 2” between each. I personally use a dampened 2” ice cream scoop and each cookie is a rounded scoop. If you form balls, flatten them slightly to 1” height.
Bake for 11 minutes (they will look underdone), then allow to cool 10 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack. Cool another 10 minutes before enjoying.
Repeat with remaining dough.
Allow cookies to cool completely before storing them in a sealed containers. Cookies will keep for 2 days at room temperature, then 5 days in the refrigerator.
