Healthier Cookie Dough
Just in time for the winter holiday season, the CDC has made another announcement to tell us that raw cookie dough isn’t safe for human consumption – even when it’s not made with eggs.
Fun-haters.
If you’re living your best plant-life, you might be wondering: If I don’t use eggs, why shouldn’t I eat raw cookie dough? Because raw flour can carry bacteria like e. coli and salmonella, and needs to be cooked to make it safe for human ingestion.
The most recent salmonella outbreak is thought to be due to the consumption of raw baking mix products. Things like Duncan Hines cake mixes, which are produced, and have been recalled by Conagra Foods.
FDA Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts lists: Duncan Hines Classic White, Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow Cake Mixes Recalled Due to Potential Presence of Salmonella
Whole Food Safety
Thing is, any food product can land itself on the contaminated list. Just last month, romaine lettuce was recalled because of an e. coli outbreak. The more factories involved in getting a specific food to your table, the higher the likelihood of contamination; the higher your risk of food-borne illness.
Add in GMO produced food, and chemically treated crops…well, you get the picture. The more hands that fuck with your food, the more likely your food is to be fucked up.
The most nutritious lifestyle, based on scientific evidence, is the one that avoids food fuckery. A whole food plant based diet is based on the consumption of mostly unprocessed, unrefined, whole foods. In other words, foods that aren’t fucked with.
What’s that have to do with this cookie dough? Well, for one thing, it doesn’t come in a box with a Duncan Hines (or Betty Crocker or whoever) label on it.
Beneficial > Neutral
We talk a lot, around here, about the definition of healthy. A healthy food isn’t just one that doesn’t have bad stuff in it. A healthy food also provides some kind of nutritional benefit.
If “neutral” refers to a food that doesn’t have a harmful affect on us, then “unhealthy” refers to a food that is harmful to us: sugar, salt, meat, dairy, etc. A “healthy food,” then, is one that does not have a harmful affect AND that provides us with nutritional benefit. At the very least, we’re aiming for the benefits to outweigh its’ neutrality. Does that make sense?
That’s what this cookie dough is all about. A couple of months ago, I made a tasty frozen cookie dough bar situation. Unfortunately, that one requires, as the name suggests, freezing. If you’re looking for a frozen cookie dough treat, yeah, head on over and give that one a whirl. But, if what you’re into is a sweet, creamy, smooth chocolate chip cookie dough treat… If you want something that you can attack with a spoon… this is the recipe for you.
Romantic AF
Occasionally, the kids go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the weekend. Last time that happened, we curled up in front of the tv to binge Season 8 of TWD. As if that weren’t romantic enough, we also had this prettily plated snack to binge on while we watched.
A Warning:
I know I just mentioned TWD. So help me, if anyone tosses out any spoilers from anything beyond Season 8, I will lose. my. shit. We very intentionally do not search for information about the show, the actors, the plots. It’s why I won’t even write out the name of the A&E series about a post-apocalyptic world in which a virus kills people and then after they are dead they get up and walk to find fresh people to eat. I actually use a vpn to access any information about previous seasons of the show. That’s how seriously I take spoiler avoidance.
If you want to talk about Seasons 1-8, though…
The Chocolate Problem
The most difficult part of this recipe is the “chocolate chip” part. I have a really tough time finding non-dairy, sugar free chocolate chips. Cacao nibs are the healthiest option, but I don’t always have them on hand because I have to buy them on Thrive Market (my grocery store doesn’t carry them) and because they are not cheap. I like the Enjoy Life brand of chocolate chips, but they aren’t sugar free. That said, they are MUCH lower sugar than any other chocolate chips at only 5g per serving.
A big bar of baker’s chocolate can be cut up and put in as the chocolate chips, as it’s not difficult to find unsweetened baker’s chocolate. However, I can’t find any that can guarantee that it hasn’t been processed with milk, so if allergies are a concern, I would recommend steering clear.
Enjoy Life brand is generally the winner around here. If anyone can tell me about a brand of sugar free, vegan chocolate chips that won’t cost me a second mortgage, I will reward your suggestion with a bag of said sugar free, vegan chocolate chips. 🙂
Healthy Safe Cookie Dough
This chocolate chip cookie dough packs a nutritional punch. Made without eggs or flour, making it completely safe to eat raw.
Ingredients
Cookie Dough Base
- 2 cans No Salt Added Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans) OR 3 cups soaked, cooked white beans
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda *Scant
- 1 tbsp Imitation Vanilla Extract Cut this in half if you’re using real or pure vanilla
- 1/2 cup Natural Peanut Butter, creamy May sub any other nut butter
- 1/4 cup Flax Seed, Ground (Flaxseed Meal)
- 1/4 cup Almond or Soy Milk *plus up to another 1/4 cup, depending on preference
Optional Sweetener
- 1-3 tbsp Erythritol (granulated) *Optional – Taste it before you add it!
Mix-Ins
- 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips (or Chocolate Chunks) Dairy free
- 1/2 cup Raw Walnuts, Chopped *Optional
Instructions
Drain and rinse the chickpeas, if using canned
Place the Cookie Dough Base ingredients into a food processor. Combine until you have a smooth, cookie-dough-like consistency, adding the additional plant milk, as needed.
Depending on your food processor, this can take several minutes.Once you’ve achieved a cookie dough consistency, stop and taste your dough; decide if you want to add sweetener. If so, add up to 3 tbsp of granulated erythritol and process until fully combined with your dough.
*see note: SweetnessScrape your dough out of the food processor and into a glass bowl. Stir in your chocolate chips and/or nuts. You can eat it right away, but I prefer to let it chill in the refrigerator for 10 or 15 minutes.
Serve as a dip for apple slices, graham crackers…or a spoon.
Recipe Notes
Sweetness
Keep in mind that you’ll be adding chocolate chips to the final product, so you may not need the sweetener at all. Even if you were able to find sugar free vegan chocolate chips in your grocery store, the peanut butter will likely take care of your sweet tooth.
If you’ve just recently adopted a sugar free diet, you’re more likely to think it needs the sweetener. The longer you’re living the sugar free life, the less likely you’ll want the extra sweetener…And since this is probably going to be your new favorite whole food plant based no sugar recipe, you’ll have future opportunities to test whether or not the additional sweetener is necessary. Sweet.
