No Butter? No Problem!

So, the other night I was home alone with Teddy (Josh was at class) and it was pouring rain outside.  I figured it was the perfect time to bake some cookies.  So, I go into the kitchen, put on my apron and then realize that I have no butter!  Oh no, how do you make cookies (good cookies) without butter?!

So, I go to the computer and type in "no butter cookie recipe" figuring that there would be plenty of vegan recipes that I could work with.  I found one that looked pretty good and with some tweaking was able to make it with what I normally put in cookies.  I didn't even tell Josh at first that there was no butter in the cookies, and he couldn't tell there was anything different about them.  They came out moist with a crisp bottom and a great texture due to the addition of oatmeal.  I also tweaked some of the other ingredients / measurements to try to make them a bit healthier.

The basic change between these cookies and a normal cookie recipe is that it uses canola oil instead of butter.  Just this alone makes the cookie a bit healthier, even without my addition of whole wheat flour, oats and lower amounts of sugar.  The basic differences between butter and oil is that butter contains a much higher amount of saturated fat (7 grams versus 2 grams), cholesterol (31mg versus 0mg) and sodium (82mg versus 0 mg). 

These are definitely going to make a re-appearance in my cookie line-up!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 & 1/2 cup oats
• 2/3 cups canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup raisins (or more to your liking)

So, I go back to the kitchen with my new plan, pre-heat the oven to 350 and get my ingredients ready:

Then I combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, sugars and oats together in the bowl of my mixer.  Then I make a hole in the center and go to add my liquids... and I realize I'm out of vanilla! Well, I had already made it this far so I went digging in the pantry and found a vanilla bean!  I scraped out the seeds and continued on my cookie-baking way.

After adding the eggs, oil and vanilla I mixed until combined.  Then I added the chocolate chips and raisins and mixed some more.  Sometimes they tell you to mix these in by hand, but I like to use the mixer still because it breaks up some of the chocolate chips and then you get little bits throughout the dough.

Using a cookie baller, 2 spoons, or your hands, form the dough into small balls and put on a baking sheet lined with a sil pad.  I like to use my little cookie scooper so that I can make sure they're all the same size and will bake in the same amount of time.  Then just take the bottom of a glass and press them all down a bit to flatten them out.

Bake for about 14 minutes (depending on size of cookie), or until lightly golden on top. Cool the cookies on the tray for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.  These cookies tasted better after they cooled a bit and the bottoms crisped up (I know because I couldn't wait to try them so I tried one right off the baking sheet - bad idea, still too dough-y).

My batch made 32 decently big cookies.  We've been enjoying these cookies for a few days now and I still can't believe that you don't miss the butter.

So, lesson for the day is with some perseverance you can make delicious cookies even without what you think are essential ingredients!