Don’t let the fact that we’re registered dietitians and personal trainers fool you…
say the words “Chocolate” and “chunk” together and we’re not immune to our thoughts wandering, imagining how chunky that chocolate chunk really is 😉 … or to our mouth’s watering at the thought of it! 🙂 As kids growing up in a healthy household where our mom made all the food from scratch and any treats in the house we had, she baked with a quarter of the sugar that traditional recipes called for, it still amazes us that she did keep chocolate chip morsels in the back of the freezer to use in some of her baking. And when she’d slip out to run errands, we’d often find ourselves sneaking a bunch…oops, we mean– just a few, really mom! 😉 .
Well, nowadays, we still are those little girls finding ways to steal those delicious chocolate nibbles without it getting the best of our waistline. After all, that’s why we created these lip-smackers—Chocolate Drizzled Granola Balls, Microwave Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies, Skinny Oreo Balls and these White Chocolate Drizzled Wild Blueberry Granola Balls just to name a few!
Now, for these lip smackers…if you love chocolate chunks the way we do, and you love ‘em in cookies…but don’t love how many calories come with them, don’t worry! Let this ooey gooey chocolate chunk cookie melt in your mouth without any feelings of regret. This delish recipe uses a small fraction of the sugar that a normal chocolate chip cookie recipe would use, AND it uses flour that is packed with protein and fiber—that actually makes the cookie so moist that you don’t need butter, or all the calories that come with it, woohoo! You won’t believe how irresistible these little numbers are.
The secret behind these cookies:
These cookies use a combination of almond flour and quinoa flour, replacing all purpose flour that is used in most cookie recipes. The almond flour helps to add moistness, density, and binding to the cookies – so you don’t need butter! And as you already know, quinoa is one of the most nutritious grains that you can buy – so adding it’s ground up form to the recipe can never hurt!
Skinny Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Instead of packing these cookies with sugar, we only used a small amount of brown sugar and applesauce. This combination keeps these cookies tasting sweet and the calories that get cut out is even sweeter!
Makes 18 Cookies (a little less than 3- inch diameter each)
Ingredients:
1 cup almond flour
½ cup quinoa flour
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
2 eggs (We use Eggland’s Best eggs because they have 25% less saturated fat than other eggs)
½ cup applesauce
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup chocolate chips
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients – almond flour, quinoa flour, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder.
- In a smaller mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients – eggs, applesauce, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient mixture, and thoroughly stir.
- Add the chocolate chunks to the dough, and mix.
- Lightly spray a baking sheet.
- Using a spoon, place the cookie dough on the baking sheet. The cookie dough should be about 1.5 inches in diameter.
- Bake for 10 minutes. When the time is up, put a toothpick through the middle of a cookie and make sure no residue appears. This will confirm that the cookies are done.
- Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack or baking sheet for at least 5 minutes. Enjoy!
The Nutrition Twins are spokespeople for Egglands Best eggs and love that the eggs have 25% less saturated fat, four times the vitamin D and double the omegas compared to other eggs.
- 1 cup almond flour
- ½ cup quinoa flour
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 eggs (We use Eggland’s Best eggs because they have 25% less saturated fat than other eggs)
- ½ cup applesauce
- ½ tsp vanilla
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients – almond flour, quinoa flour, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder.
- In a smaller mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients – eggs, applesauce, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient mixture, and thoroughly stir.
- Add the chocolate chunks to the dough, and mix.
- Lightly spray a baking sheet.
- Using a spoon, place the cookie dough on the baking sheet. The cookie dough should be about 1.5 inches in diameter.
- Bake for 10 minutes. When the time is up, put a toothpick through the middle of a cookie and make sure no residue appears. This will confirm that the cookies are done.
- Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack or baking sheet for at least 5 minutes. Enjoy!
