power-cookies
These are Belly-Bootcamp-kicked-my-butt-and-now-I’m-staaaaaaaaarving cookies. Packed with nut butter, seeds and whole grains—and free of refined sugars—they boast 6 grams of protein, oodles of fibre, and a soft chocolatey interior that will satisfy even the most serious of cookie cravings.
Thank you to Sarah Huggins of (Cooking for) Kiwi and Bean for another healthy, family-friendly recipe to please
your tiny little bosses and your inner gourmand. Sarah is a Belly Bootcamper, mommy of two, and lawyer by day, who whips up amazing but do-able meals for her family of four.My favourite fancy grocery store sells a “power muffin” that I just can’t get enough of. It’s dark and dense, andpacked with nuts, seeds, dates and hunks of dark chocolate. It sounds fairly virtuous, but I expect it contains enough “power”(read: calories) for an entire day. So I set out to replicate it in an equally delicious but less indulgent cookie format, and these “Power Cookies” were born.
I’ve called them cookies, but they actually have the consistency of a muffin top (I mean the top of a muffin muffin top, and not the top of your skinny jeans muffin top): moist, soft and dense on the inside, but browned and a little crisp on the outside. Yum.
As far as cookies go, these ones are about as virtuous as it gets: sweetened with banana and just a touch of maple syrup, fattened with peanut butter, and packed with whole grains and seeds. The chocolate chips are an optional addition, but particularly effective at convincing unsuspecting kidlets that these are really and truly cookies. Even with the chocolate chips, each cookie (and these are pretty big cookies!) clocks in at less than 200 calories.
We like to eat these for breakfast, snacks, desserts, and just about any occasion that calls for a cookie or a muffin…or a salad. So yeah, we really like to eat these. And I think you will too.
Power Cookies
yields approximately 15 cookies
- 1 super ripe banana
- 1 egg
- ½ cup natural no-salt, no-sugar peanut butter
- ¼ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cup rolled oats
- ½ cup spelt or whole wheat flour
- ½ cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- ¼ cup millet
- ¼ cup pepitas
- ¼ cup finely chopped pitted Medjool dates (raisins will work too)
- 3 tablespoons chia seeds
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mash the banana in a large mixing bowl. Add egg, peanut butter, maple syrup and vanilla and whisk until well combined.
3. In a medium bowl, combine rolled oats, flour, coconut, millet, pepitas, dates, chia seeds, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and mix to combine. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Drop the batter by quarter-cupfuls onto two parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
6. Bake for 10-14 minutes or until the cookies start to turn golden brown around the edges.
7. Let them cool for a couple of minutes, and then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store leftovers in a sealed container lined with paper towels. (The paper towels help to keep the leftover cookies from becoming too soft and soggy.)
Note: If you don’t have millet, dates, pepitas, coconut or chia seeds in your pantry — and who does?! — your best bet is to stock up at the nearest bulk foods store.