Cookies Are A Sometimes Food ~ A "Healthy" Chocolate Chip Oat Cookie Recipe

A cookie can be scrumptious.  Crunchy, sweet, or yumptious.  But a cookie is a sometimes food.

~Cookie Monster

Why is "healthy" in quotations?  Well, they are healthy because these cookies are made with spelt, oats, and unrefined muscovado sugar.  They are not healthy because the grains aren't soaked, soured, or sprouted. But here's the deal.  I modified this recipe slightly to remove any refined ingredients, but these are the cookies of my youth.  I have a long-standing love for them.  They render any self control useless.  You might try making them with sprouted flour, but I can't bring myself to modify this recipe any more than I already have.

When my brother and I were with baby-sitters, these cookies and I would rendezvous under the guise of hide-and-seek.  I generously let the baby-sitter count while I grabbed as many cookies as I could, stashed them in various corners of the house, and inhaled as many as possible before hearing "ready or not, here I come!"  When my parents returned and wondered what happened to all the cookies, I was provoked to reply, "That baby-sitter sure did love them.  I've never seen anyone eat so many cookies at once."

The cookies made me do it.

Maybe this recipe shouldn't be shared.  It's powers are too strong.

The fact that I'm posting a recipe that doesn't include soaking or souring and the fact that we are sending three of our kids to school this year probably has some of you interceding for my salvation.  Fear not.  My home schooling roots run deep and we plan on returning to edumacating at home.  As for these cookies?  I probably make about four batches a year and freeze them to only eat little bits at a time.  The only problem is I discovered that frozen cookies are delicious.  Now they live in the barn's chest freezer to distance myself from them.  I figure the Jewish people eat unleavened bread once a week, so it won't hurt us to eat unleavened cookies once a quarter.  Just go with it.

I've decided to make a batch, freeze them, and put two cookies in each child's lunch box every Friday as a spacial treat; one for them and one to share.  I hope they share.  The genes aren't in their favor though.  

Powerful Unrefined Chocolate Chip Cookies (eat at your own risk)

Makes about 3 dozen; prep time: 10 minutes, bake time: 15 minutes

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups muscovado sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups spelt (why I choose spelt)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
• 2 cups oats
• 2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350º.  Cream butter and sugar thoroughly.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Add vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, mix, flour, soda, and salt.  Slowly pour in flour mixture into butter mixture while the mixer is on low.   Mix thoroughly.  Stir in oats, then chocolate chips.
3. Shape loosely into balls, about 2 heaping tablespoons each.  Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown and the middle is still doughy.  Cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes then transfer each cookie to a cooling rack.

Please excuse the blur.  I was holding a 4-month-old who somehow knew these were good and was trying to grab one.  It's a generational reflex.

TIP:

I take cookies very seriously and feel that most of them are over-baked.  This is an unnecessary travesty that makes me weep.  Here is my rule of thumb:  if the cookies still look raw in the middle but there is a hint of brown on the edges, take them out of the oven.  They will cook a little bit more as they cool on the cookie sheet for two minutes.  Then be sure to transfer them to a cooling rack so they stop cooking.  This will leave you with cookies that are gooey on the inside and crispy on the outside and they hold up beautifully.

One more picture of these beauties, just because.

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