Thursday, March 05, 2015

Gluten-Free Vegan (Sugarless) Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Stephanie brought these to our board hang out night and I kept thinking about them all week. She told me she found the recipe on Two Peas and Their Pod - blog. I searched. Then I had to make vegan/sugarless chocolate chips. My bananas weren't ripe; so I ripened them. FINALLY I was ready to  BAKE cookies!   I chose not to use any sweetener other than the bananas. I think they are fine. I haven't had sugar for months. I suspect the SAPs (Standard American Palates) around here will want it with some sort of sugar - Agave or honey..... The bitter chocolate and less sugar certainly make it less likely to binge on these and yet still provide a nice taste treat.

INGREDIENTS:
3 large, very ripe bananas, peeled
1/2 cup creamy all-natural peanut butter
1 tablespoon coconut oil, slightly warmed, but not melted
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups gluten-free oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat Baking Mat and set aside...or spray it.

2. In a large bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork. Stir in the peanut butter, coconut oil, agave, and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.

3. In a separate medium bowl, stir together the oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

4. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are set. Let cool on baking sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.

Note: If you don't need the cookies to be vegan, you can use honey instead of agave nectar and regular chocolate chips. I love these cookies eaten right out of the freezer.

Homemade Chocolate Bars (Chocolate Chips) Vegan

I found this recipe on Chocolate Covered Katie. HER photos are beautiful. She says these taste like a Dove bar. I don't know. It did make a dark chocolate/bitter bar....and I could have used the agave to sweeten it up - but I've sworn off sugars.  I'm not sure if the stevia I used gave it a bitter taste or if it's just that it doesn't have sugars.
 
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp cacao or cocoa powder
  • 4 tbsp unrefined coconut oil, melted
  • NuNaturals vanilla stevia drops to taste (If you'd prefer to use a liquid sweetener, such as agave or pure maple syrup, use this ratio instead: 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1/4 cup coconut oil, 3 tbsp of your liquid sweetener.)
  • optional extracts, cocoa nibs, or other add-ins
  • optional 1 extra tbsp oil or water, if it needs to be thinner
Instructions
Combine coconut oil with the liquid sweetener or stevia drops. (For the stevia version, I recommend NuNaturals because I find other brands to have an aftertaste.)
 
Stir, then add the cacao powder. Stir stir stir! Stir until it gets thick. 
Pour into any flat container (or candy molds or smush between layers of wax paper or in ziploc bags).
 
 Freeze until solid, and store in the freezer.
 
Once hardened, you can also opt to melt the bars again for chocolate sauce.
 
 Or chop them up for healthy 100% sugar-free chocolate chips! If you use the stevia option, these bars are sugar-free.