Who doesn’t like a bit of sweet after dinner? We all need that little dessert after meals isn’t it? Most often we would sneak in the kitchen drawers looking for chocolate bars and cookies jars, m&ms, sweets or candies. Or we would open the fridge to look for ice-cream, a jar of nuttela or lollies. That’s why it’s so important to have ‘something sweet but something healthy’ to eat.
Indian desserts are loaded with milk, fats, ghee, sugar and a lot of frying goes in the process; so I decided to make cookies for that ‘something sweet but something healthy’ to eat. Whole Wheat Oats Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
What makes these cookies healthy?
- The choice of flour. These cookies are made with whole wheat flour (chakki atta or chapatti ata) and thus it’s much healthier compared to the ones made with all purpose flour (maida).
- I used oats as another main ingredient. Oatmeal cookies provide a small amount of protein that is not present in other cookies. Oatmeal cookies have a high fiber content compared to normal sugar cookies.
- Dark chocolate. I used 70% dark cocoa chocolate which is a very healthy alternative compared to milk chocolate or white chocolate chips.
- Less sugar. Because you added chocolate you wouldn’t have to add extra sugar to make your cookies sweet. The chunks of dark chocolate will make the cookies sweet and will also make it gooey.
- You can also add a whole lot of nuts like cashews, almonds, walnut or raisins to increase the health quotient of these cookies.
What is the healthiest cookie ever? How to make healthy cookies? Recipe for healthiest cookies?
- There is nothing called as healthiest cookie, but yes with some changes and healthy alternatives you can make cookies healthy. Use healthy flour such as whole wheat, rye, ragi or sorghum (jowar) flour. You can check Jowar Chocolate Cookies here.
- You must try and use healthy side ingredients too such as flaxseeds, sesame seeds, nuts or oats. All these ingredients help to bind the dough and give you those crunchy cookies without compromising health factor.
- Cut down on sugar; instead use honey, brown sugar, coconut sugar, applesauce or chocolate. I love to use 70-80% dark chocolate in the cookies-chocolate makes everything sweet and thus I have to add very little sugar in the whole process.
- Reduce the fat. Try to add less butter, oil or ghee in the recipe. I would say chocolate plays a good role here too; it adds both sweetness and buttery touch to cookies. I try to add in very less fat and add healthier alternative such as milk or yogurt to recipes; it not only binds the dough, the natural fat in milk and curd makes the cookies soft.
Ingredients:
¾ cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup rolled oats
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup butter
½ cup dark chocolate chopped into chunks
4 tablespoons sugar (I used brown)
4-5 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoons yogurt
Method:
In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, oats, baking soda, sugar, butter, chocolate chunks well. Try to form dough.
You will notice that dough is too hard so add yogurt and mix again.
Slowly add milk one tablespoon at a time and then keep forming dough. You should be left with hard and yet workable dough. This means that everything should be combined well and no crumbs must fall.
Keep the dough in the fridge for 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven at 170 C for 10 minutes.
In the meantime, line a baking tray with parchment paper/butter paper. Take a tablespoon from the dough and start making cookies. I made disc shaped cookies.
Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes.
Let it cool and serve.
Notes:
Milk, yogurt and chocolate chunk must be used right from the fridge. Rest all the ingredients must be at room temperature.
You can also use chocolate chips (milk chocolate on white chocolate) in this recipe instead of chunks.
Feel free to add chopped walnuts or almonds too.