The majority of recipes for healthier chocolate chip cookies involve nut flours, complicated mixtures of flours, gums and starches to hold them together or nut butters.
These vegan chocolate chip cookies have less than ¼ of the amount of sugar found in regular chocolate chip cookies and involve no fancy flours or nut butters, making them allergy free.
But most importantly, they’re really good. They’re one of the best cookies I’ve made. They have a nice crunch from the oat flour, are soft, hold their shape and are packed with chocolate.
I used oats as the “flour”. Make sure they’re gluten free if you follow a gluten-free diet. If not, regular oats will work. Blend them in a blender (not a magimix) until you get a fine flour like texture.
To bind the cookies I used chia seeds to make a chia egg. You can also use flaxseed powder/flour if you don’t have chia seeds. It works in the same quantity (1 tbsp flaxseed flour to 3 tbsp water) and is a common egg replacer.
As they’re vegan I used maple syrup as the sweetener, but a runny honey should also work as an alternative (I did not try it with honey, but based on other cookies I have made, it should work.)
Lastly, the chocolate really makes the cookies – so use a good quality dark chocolate. As the actual cookie dough is not very sweet, you need the dark rich chocolate flavour to really give the cookies that chocolate chip cookie feel. I used a 65% cacao – I would suggest going up no more than to 70% cacao – any higher and the cookies will be too bitter.
Gluten Free, Nut Free and Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 3 tbsp water
- 1/2 C coconut oil melted and cooled
- 1/4 C maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 C oats gluten free and blended into a flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 C dark chocolate chips / chopped chocolate
You will Also need
- baking sheet and baking paper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking sheet with paper.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking sheet with paper.
- Combine the chia seeds and water in a glass and let it sit for 5 minutes, until the chia seeds have formed a gel.
- Melt coconut oil and let cool (you don't want it to melt the chocolate). If your coconut oil is already liquid (usually during summer when the temperatures are higher) you can skip this step.
- Combine the syrup and vanilla with the cooled coconut oil and mix.
- In a medium mixing bowl combine the blended oats with baking powder and salt.
- Add the coconut oil mixture to the oats and mix. Add in the chia mixture and mix until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Scoop about 1 ½ tbsp measurements of the batter into balls and place on a baking sheet about 4cm apart from each other – these cookies do not spread a lot.
- Flatten the tops of the cookies using a fork or the back of a spoon or glass.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
