Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are a guilty pleasure.  This isn’t health food, but a healthier cookie with both fat and sugar reduced and some of the white flour replaced with oatmeal and almond flours.

This recipe produces a soft, moist cookie that tastes just like its fattier, more sugary cousin.  It has half the usual amount of butter (replaced with yogurt), and most of the sugar is replaced with a Truvia sugar blend that has a minimal amount of regular sugar in it.

Yummy!  No reason not to make these for the holidays instead of the fattier, higher calorie ones!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
Slightly less than 1/2 cup room temperature greek yogurt
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup Brown Sugar Blend -Truvia or Splenda
2 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oatmeal flour (can be made in food processor from old fashioned oats)
1/2 cup almond flour
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in to batter each type of flour, stirring just until incorporated; do not overmix.

Stir in chocolate chips, and nuts if using. Refrigerate dough for 5 to 10 minutes.

Drop 9 to 12 small spoonfuls of walnut-sized batter onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Refrigerate remaining dough between baking batches. Bake cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are just beginning to brown.

Remove from oven and allow cookies to remain on the cookie sheet for 5 to 10 minutes.  This will allow the cookies to finish cooking completely, remaining soft without over-browning them.  Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store cookies in air tight container or freeze. Makes about 20 cookies.