Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies (Dairy-free, Additives-free)



Alhamdulillah.
I'm just very happy, and relief after making these cookies.
Every time I saw cookies recipe anywhere in internet or recipe books, they always using baking soda or baking powder. It's not that all of food additives are veerrrrrryyy dangerous. I'm not a doctor, you know. I'm just a little bit suspicious with food additives. A video and an article that I found about food additives makes me more and more want to avoid them. Besides, I just want to prove that all those synthetic or maybe chemical thing(I don't know) are not necessary to use in our food. More natural food probably are better healthier food, I think.

Of course I'm not and can't always avoid those things. I'm not so uptight avoiding it. We still eat store-bought cookies, breads, crackers, etc. But, it's just makes me happier to baking and cooking naturally. I'm not too attached with such synthetic things and don't have to buy baking powder, baking soda, and all of their friends. I can safe some money, thrifty me!
It feels like..great when we can beat those mass-production food. Ha ha, okay, I'm exaggerating.
I have talked about reducing food additives before in a cooking and baking mailing list. Some of them told me not to be paranoid. Oh dear.. Is it wrong if we have our own choice of healthiness?

Anyway, I always thought, can I make chocolate cookies without any synthetic food additives? Whenever I google about it, they always say no, you can't. Only shortbread that can be make without baking soda or baking powder, they said. Well. let see about that now.

Yesterday I really want to make cookies for my sons. I remember I have chocolate chips and almonds in the kitchen. I have to make something from those almonds before they got rotten! But, oh no, I only have 1 stick of butter, while that butter I kept to make pastry for pie. So, search and search, I found some recipe that instead of using butter, they uses oil. Good. I'm safe. Besides, using oil in baking is slightly healthier than using butter, right? ;)
Then I was thinking again, if I mix the eggs and oil until resemble to mayonnaise, maybe it can substitute butter well... While on that thought, I remember how we can bake cakes without those food additives as long as we mix the eggs right. So probably... The result of my fuzzy mind was, I will mix the eggs and oil until resemble to mayonnaise, and skip out the baking soda. Here is the recipe that inspire me to make cookie with oil, but I guess I changed quite a bit in it.

How's the result then? Good. I don't know how many cookies does it makes from one recipe, because my son kept on eating it every time I took them out from the oven. So I did't really had chance counting them.

I just love it.

Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup wholemeal wheat flour
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 tsp salt
1⁄3 cup oil
1 egg
1⁄2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup whole roasted almond, crushed

Directions:
- Mix with spoon flour, chocolate chips and almonds.
- In another bowl mix with electric mixer egg, oil, sugar and salt until thick and the consistency resemble to mayonnaise.
- Add the flour mix into the egg mix. Fold with spatula, just until all wet.
- Put the dough in the fridge at about 15 minutes, while we heat up the oven to 170C.
- Line a cookie tin with a baking paper.
- With two teaspoons make a ball of dough and put onto the the tin. You can press the dough a little with your finger to make it wider if you like.
- Bake about 10 minutes.
- Take out from the oven and let it cool. The first time they took out from the oven they might seems a bit soft, but after cooled it will be harden a bit. It will be chewy inside and crunchy on top.

Enjoy :)

4 comments:

  1. These cookies do look tasty. It is hard to believe that there is no baking soda or powder in them. Avoiding those two things in baking is not an easy task, but it looks like you were successful here-well done!

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  2. Thank you Tina, I thought if we can make cake without them, we should be able make cookies without them too
    I hope anyone can try :)

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  3. Hello Nita,

    I added my lemon juice with the heat on.
    You can add salt. But cream cheese is used to make desserts. And I don't think salty cream cheese would be good. If you add salt, it would become like salted paneer. For the amount of milk specified in my recipe, you could add about 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon salt.
    It keeps fresh in the fridge for 2 days. :)
    Hope this helps.

    Kavi

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  4. Hi Kavi, thanks for stopping by to respond my questions. If you say so, then I won't add salt to my cheese then :) Thanks again!

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