Dairy-Free Choco Chunk Cookies

February 17, 2021

“Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.”

— Glennon Doyle

Of all of the things that I was excited for about my little babe turning ONE (!!) at the beginning of the month, introducing him to my world of baked goods was among the top few! No, I didn’t just let him run wild with chocolate and cookies and cakes, but giving him tiny bits of cookies or bars has been the most fun to see him reaction!

For his birthday, we did it true pandemic style and had a big zoom party with the family, including singing, balloons, streamers, and, of course, CAKE! I made him a (basically) no sugar added carrot cake with a peanut butter frosting. I have loved this recipe forever, and just wanted him to have SOME health to it! Let me tell you - it was not a love at first bite kind of moment. Oliver was so delicate with the cake, taking a tiny lick from his finger, but once my husband gave him a spoonful, it was ON! Oliver kept wanting more and more, then became ultra silly, giggling, screaming, it was a blast! Of course, we took a mid-cake break with some actual lunch for him, but he couldn’t get enough! The small 6” cake that I made for him was probably about a quarter of the way eaten when we realized that we should probably take it away from him! All in all, a huge success in my book!

Moving on to these cookies. I was graciously gifted these Honey Mamas bars, which are UNREAL! They seriously taste like a chocolate bar, yet there’s no processed ingredients in them at all. Like, go get yourself some! I shared a lot with a friend who hikes almost every other day and she was OBSESSED! Anyways, now that Oliver can safely eat honey, I figured I would chop up a bunch of them and throw them into these cookies! Incredible idea, Katie! These cookies aren’t overly sweet, are full of some good fats, some great fiber, just all around wonderful! I want Oliver to love food yet also benefit from everything he is eating. So, if I can make him some chocolate chunk cookies that just happen to be slightly more healthy and wholesome than your average cookie, I’m taking this as a win!

Do you need these Honey Mamas bars to make these babies delish?! Not at all - any chocolate chunk works! I just love the added richness, so I highly recommend!

ingredients

Coconut Oil—6 oz, or ¾ C

Peanut Butter—7.5 oz, or ¾ C

Brown Sugar—8 oz, or 1 C

Eggs—3

Vanilla Extract—1tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Flour—20 oz, or 4 C

Cinnamon—2 tsp

Oats—3 oz, or 1 C

Chocolate Chunks—11 oz, or 2 (heaped) C

(DF) Milk—2 oz, or ¼ C

process

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the coconut oil and peanut butter until smooth, scraping down the sides every few minutes.

Add in the brown sugar, mix until smooth.

Add in the eggs and vanilla extract, mix and scrape.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Slowly add this to the creamed mixture and mix until just combined.

Add in the oats and chocolate chunks, mix until just combined.

Slowly add in the milk, 1 Tablespoon at a time.

Once everything has been incorporated and your dough has come together, slightly sticky, remove from the mixer, place in a bowl, covered, and into the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350˚F.

Using a scoop or your hands, form cookie balls that are roughly 2 Tablespoons in size.

Place on a baking sheet that has either been sprayed with non-stick spray or use parchment/Silpat.

Bake for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, 8 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on a cooling rack before enjoying!

Store in an airtight container.

Bon Appétit!

Banana Protein Truffles

January 7, 2021

“All that is gold does not glitter; all those who wander are not lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by frost.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

New recipe of the new year and damn, it’s a winner!

I have been on SUCH a snack kick lately, I think that the holidays got the best of me. While balance is basically how I live my life, the past couple of weeks have been more cookies and chocolate, less veggies and hummus, and that is OKAY! That being said, my skin told me to chill a bit with the heaps of nuts, plantain chips and chocolate oranges as did my exhaustion, so I’m listening to both sides of my cravings with this recipe!

As we all know, chocolate anything is my love language, and add in some nut butter? SOLD! Straying away from the overdone protein balls, I wanted to introduce protein TRUFFLES - sounds so fancy doesn’t it?! The texture in these is much softer and less chalky, there’s no protein powder, no almond or coconut flour, nothing that will make you feel as though you need a gallon of water after each bite. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good protein ball, but, I don’t know, they feel very 2018 to me right now, and I’m trying to bring some excitement to 2021!

Mixing (or mash!) in chickpeas to these was a true game changer!! As we know, chickpeas + tahini = hummus (basically), so why not chickpeas + nut butter?! The same smooth texture, the same nonexistent flavor of chickpeas with whatever nut butter you want, some banana, some spice, some chocolate … HELLO to these soft and decadent snacks/desserts/whenever you want them pillows of YUM! I also realized that these can be baked if you want some melted chocolate in there, they can be rolled in crushed peanuts, in unsweetened coconut (seen below), drizzled with chocolate, the list goes on and on! They take about 10 minutes to whip up, if you don’t have a little babe running around, and they aren’t sickeningly sweet, either. The best of every single world!

Will these be a new staple in my snacking diet? Hell yes. Will they become a (hopeful) favorite of Oliver?! You bet! Simple, slightly sweet, packed with protein and healthy fats, unprocessed, homemade snack truffles - what a mouthful. The new year doesn’t exactly mean that things will be back to “normal” any time soon, but it does bring a sense of freshness, in whatever sense you’d like that to mean for yourself, and for me, it’s the excitement of new recipes, new milestones for O, and new oportunities!

ingredients

Banana—1 medium

Chickpeas—1-15.5 oz can

Nut Butter—3 oz, or 1/3 C

Honey—2.5 oz, or ¼ C

Vanilla—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—1 tsp

Oats—3 oz, or ¾ C

Chocolate Chips—4 oz, or ½ C

Coconut—to coat

process

In a food processor or a large bowl, combine the banana, chickpeas, nut butter, honey, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Blend/mash together.

Add in the oats and chocolate chips, blend until just mixed, making sure that there are still some full pieces of the oats. Great for texture!

Using a small scoop, or your hands, put the scooped truffles onto a baking sheet lined with either parchment paper or a nonstick mat. If using your hands, the size is up to you, but about 2 tablespoons is great!

Once you have finished scooping the truffles, you have a few options: either roll them in coconut, crushed up nuts, a drizzle of chocolate, or you can bake them at 350˚F for about 12 minutes, just enough for the chocolate to melt!

If you are rolling in coconut, etc., afterwards, place in the fridge or freezer to firm up for about 30-60 minutes before storing them in an airtight container in the fridge!

Bon Appétit!

Kid Friendly Gingerbread Cookies

December 21, 2020

“I hope your days are filled with countless tiny miracles unfolding continuously, sewn together in the mess you call life.”

— Sjana

CHRISTMAS IS THIS WEEK!!

Am I the most excited person in our house?! Absolutely! Am I hoping that in the coming years, Oliver will join me on the excitement train?! DUH! This has always been my favorite time of the year, there’s just no way around it. We have been binging all of the Christmas classics: Elf, The Santa Clauses, A Christmas Carol, terrible Lifetime and Hallmark movies, you name it! Oliver could care less, yet he has been becoming more and more attracted to the gifts under the tree, but he is still in his “I love dog toys” phase and “let me open drawers” phase.

While he may not be as keen about the holidays as I am (yet!), one thing that he does love is food! If we sit down for a snack, he needs a bite; if we have water, he needs a sip; if he sees something on our dinner plates that isn’t on his, he must have it—you get the picture! That being said, I have been waiting for this day, when I could bake with my little one, and it honestly was SO much fun! Oliver mainly just wanted to play with the dough and eat as many cookies as he could before I could stop him, but I rolled with it!

Growing up, making Christmas cookies and bread was quite an event! My mom would bake dozens of Challah and cinnamon swirl loaves to give to friends, tins and tins of spritz cookies, gingerbread, PB balls, galore! We would also always do a gingerbread house decorating contest (cannot wait for this in the years to come!), and I wanted to start some traditions with our little guy! That being said, I wanted to make a KID FRIENDLY recipe for Oliver. That means low on the sugar pole but stuffed with spices! We aren’t giving him chocolate just yet, he doesn’t consume that much dairy, and he seems to be ultra-sensitive to sugar, like he gets very hyper! Honestly, what would you expect with an (almost) 11-month-old?! So, I wanted to make these as low in sugar as I could, cutting the amount of molasses in half and using less brown sugar than normal. To me, I am all about the spices in a gingerbread cookie, so that is definitely not lacking whatsoever here! Due to cutting out some molasses, I added in some dairy-free milk to make sure these cookies are nice and moist! Overall, Oliver LOVED these (see below!), and I cannot wait until we decorate them next year with candies and icing and who knows what else! For now, I’m going to enjoy my sweet little bub and all of his craziness, hopefully we don’t eat all of them before Santa comes!

ingredients

Butter—4 oz, or 8 TBL

Brown Sugar—3.5 oz, or ½ C

Molasses—3.75 oz, or 1/3 C

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Egg—1

Flour—18 oz, or 3 C

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—1 ¼ TBL

Ginger—1 ¼ TBL

Cloves—½ tsp

Allspice—½ tsp

Dairy-free milk—2.5 oz, or 5 TBL

process

In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5-10 minutes.

Add in the egg, vanilla and molasses to the mixer, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl every few minutes. It will begin to look slightly curdled—that’s okay!

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and all of the spices.

With your mixer on low, add this to your creamed mixture, mix until just combined.

Slowly stream in your milk, mix for about 30 seconds so that a homogenous dough forms.

Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and put in the fridge to firm up, either a couple of hours or overnight.

When you are ready to bake your cookies, preheat the oven to 350˚F.

Knead the dough with your hands a bit so that it warms up and is easier to roll out.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about ¼” thick.

Using whatever cutters you would like, stamp out cookies and place on a baking sheet that is lined with either parchment, a Silpat or nonstick spray.

Continue to reroll the dough until you have used it all, making sure to keep the cut-out cookies in the fridge until you are ready to bake them.

Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, 4 minutes.

Allow to cool on a rack prior to either decorating or eating!

Bon Appétit!

Thick Mint Cookie

November 23, 2020

“When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.”

— Unknown

My idea behind this was short and sweet—I love Thin Mints, I love all things chocolate and mint, it’s the holiday season, why should I have to wait for it to be Girl Scout cookie season, so let’s make a thin mint! But then, I was like OH NO, let’s make a THICK mint. A big, big cookie, single serve if you want, so instead of sitting down to eat an entire sleeve of Thin Mints, you can just eat one cute little skillet cookie!

As my husband isn’t the biggest fan of the chocolate-mint combination (crazy, right?!!??) and my 10-month-old son is too young to eat chocolate (I just read that it is recommended to wait until they are TWO to eat chocolate…), I got this baby all to myself! There is just something about the way that anything chocolate and mint tastes in the winter, as you listen to holiday music for 2 months, wishing snow was trapping you inside instead of a pandemic… it all sounds so dreamy. Unfortunately, it’s still in the 60’s here in Atlanta and the only reason we aren’t going anywhere is because it’s too dangerous to!

BUT! Let’s just enjoy these moments that we are forced to stay home, watch all of the cheesy Christmas movies on Hallmark and Lifetime, eat delicious food, light all of the balsam scented candles, listen to Michael Bublé Christmas for the millionth time, and eat a giant single-serve cookie because why the hell not! If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that enjoying a THICK MINT cookie to myself is MORE than okay, as there will be zero guilt here in the KBemBakes household! Now back to dancing to my regularly scheduled holiday music with my son while my husband both laughs at us and looks like we are slightly nuts!

ingredients

Butter, room temperature—4 oz, or ½ C

Brown Sugar—6 oz, or ¾ C

Eggs—1

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Peppermint Extract—1 ½ tsp

Flour—6 oz, or 1 C

Cocoa Powder—2.25 oz, or ¾ C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Chocolate Chips—3.75 oz, or ½ C

process

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar, cream until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes.

Add the egg and both extracts. Mix until combined, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.

Slowly add this to the creamed mixture in the mixer, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Add in the chocolate chips.

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

Butter a small cast iron skillet.

Press the cookie dough evenly into the pan and allow to firm up slightly in the fridge while your oven preheats.

When ready to bake, bake for 15 minutes, rote the pan 180˚, and then bake for 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

Optional Topping: melt together about ¼ C of chocolate chips with 1 TBL of coconut oil for about 30-45 seconds in the microwave (stirring every 15 seconds), drizzle on top of cookie skillet.

Dig in with a spoon for maximum deliciousness!

If you want to make individual drop cookies, bake for 7 minutes, rotate, 7 minutes.

Bon Appétit!

Tahini Chocolate Chunk Cookies

October 16, 2020

“The present is the only thing that has no end.”

— Erwin Schrödinger

This may be a little crazy to say, but these cookies deserve an award! They honestly taste like fudgy brownie cookies, and I am shook.

When I made them for the first time, I immediately texted my old roommate, apologizing for turning down tahini all of those times that we lived together. She tried to get me to try it in every form, even the wonderful chocolate halva bars—I always turned it down. But now, many years later, I’m in LOVE! The flavor is never too strong for me, but it adds this richness that I simply cannot explain, taking anything from good to outright insane and necessary and mouthwatering.

The wonderful thing about these little bites of deliciousness is that they do not need a mixer, there are no fancy baking steps involved, just mixing the wet ingredients together, the dry together and combining the two for a rich and decadent batter, which makes an unreal cookie. As we know, I’m all about the speedy yet worth it desserts or treats these days, as my little one is on the go when he’s awake! He’s also still not eating chocolate or sugar or any of my specialties yet as he is still only 8-months-old, SO it’s not like he can take part in all of this fun because he also puts everything into his mouth!

Anyways, these cookies are worth going to the store to get a HUGE jar of tahini if you don’t keep some in your fridge or pantry at all times! It’s hard to believe that these taste like brownie batter but in cookie form, but they do—trust me. Hell, you can even make them vegan if you want to sub in a banana for the egg, make them GF if you swap out the flour, these are quite friendly to any changes that you feel necessary to make. Just know, these won’t last long, and if you think that the 1 dozen that this recipe makes is enough for the week, HAH (!), think again, my friends!