Wednesday 2 February 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookies (made with olive oil)

This is another recipe which needs a bit of work on it to perfect it, but it's broadening the range of things I can bake without using butter or other saturated fats. The only problem with this recipe was that the mixture was a bit sloppy, so spread too far during baking. It shouldn't take much adjustment to put that right.

I took the recipe from Cookie Madness, but made a few changes to accommodate what I had in the store cupboard, and the various dislikes of some family members. I used spelt instead of wholewheat flour, and medium oatmeal instead of rolled oats. I also took out the pecans and added dried sweetened cranberries instead.


The dough was too soft to shape by hand, so was spooned out onto a baking sheet; this may have been because of the changes I made to the flour and oats, as the recipe suggests the dough is stiff. The cookies spread  quite a bit during baking, so were quite thin when cooked, but still with a good chewy texture and that unique indescribable flavour that comes from spelt.

9 comments:

Chocolate Here said...

Olive oil. That must bring a whole other dimension to the taste of a cookie. All the oils available ... the possibilities!

Suelle said...

I think sunflower or other vegetable oils would be just as good in this recipe - the other flavours, particularly the spelt, dominated any flavour the olive oil might have given - however, my olive oil is not particularly strong.

PS - for some reason I cannot add your new blog to my reading list, but I am keeping up with you!

Mary Bergfeld said...

Suelle, these sound really interesting. I've made cake with olive oil, but never cookies. I'm new to your blog and have just spent some time browsing through your earlier entries. I really like the recipes you feature here. I'll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

Chele said...

I have been suffering from sloppy cookie dough too, problem is when I try to corrent it I go too far the other way ... a happy medium is so tricky with cookie dough. On the bright side though your finished cookies don't look like they have suffered at all, they look spot on to me.

Suelle said...

Thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment, Mary.

Chele - you're right, the finished cookies were fine - perhaps a little chewier than they needed to be. Only I knew they could be better! ;-)

celia said...

I love spelt cookies, this sounds like a nice option for CT, Suelle! Do you use high cacao chocolate or just less of it?

Suelle said...

Celia - so far I haven't been bothering about the fat in chocolate. I suppose I should really, but I feel that cutting out butter is a big enough step. There's also some evidence that the saturated fats in chocolate do not have the same effect on cholesterol levels as animal fats. This cookie recipe does actually contain a lot less chocolate than my usual recipes, but that's just a coincidence! ;-)

Caroline said...

They look good - I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make cookies with liquid fat. Spelt flour has a flavour that's really hard to describe doesn't it! Tastes great though.

Suelle said...

Spelt is beginning to grow on me, C. Even Hubs noticed the flavour in these cookies, as there was less chocolate and fruit than in the similar Dan Lepard recipe I usually use.