Detox Chocolate Coconut Cookies

This morning brought rain, cold, and being housebound because we have some major construction occurring on our house.  No sense explaining it, but suffice it to say that I wanted to be nearby as our entire  chimney was being rebuilt.  When I looked at the clock and it said 10:18 (that’s not close to lunchtime, or naptime, or anything, for that matter), I decided we needed a project.  

And I am not sure about you, but how can I feel like I ate a small country’s sugar consumption in one Easter weekend?   Probably because I came close.  And I find that once I eat too much sugar, I almost need detox to curb my taste for it.  So, I wanted to make something that would please the toddler, give us a project, and curb our Easter sugar addiction.  What I came up with was inspired by Nikki’s Healthy Cookies at 101 Cookbooks, which is a great kid-friendly, flourless, sugarless cookie.  

This cookie takes a slightly different turn with chocolate and sprouted spelt flour.  And I’ll warn you: they are not very sweet… there’s just a bit of added sweetener and a mashed banana.  But I think they would make a great freezer stash for those days when you need a chocolate pick-me-up but aren’t willing to go crazy.  (Actually, I think most of my afternoons would qualify as that.)  I added toasted sunflower seeds because of my daughter’s nut allergy, but if that’s not a problem for you I think some macadamia nuts would be absolutely divine.  

And the ultimate test was my two year old, who chowed one down like it was a solid chocolate bunny.  

Detox Chocolate Coconut Cookies

(Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies)

1/2 cup of coconut oil
2 T brown sugar
2 T honey
1/2 cup cocoa
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 1/2 cups sprouted spelt flour (could use whole wheat or white whole wheat flour) 
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 T yogurt
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds (or other nuts such as macadamias — those should be roughly chopped)
1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut 

1.  Preheat oven to 375 F.  Combine spelt flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda in medium bowl and set aside.

2.  In a medium saucepan, melt coconut oil with brown sugar, honey, and cocoa.  When melted, remove from heat and stir in mashed banana, yogurt, and vanilla extract.  Pour into large bowl and let cool for a few minutes.

3.  Once cooled a bit, beat eggs and stir into cocoa-coconut oil mixture.

4.  Add dry ingredients (flour, salt, BP, BS) to cocoa-coconut oil mixture and stir well with a rubber spatula.  The dough will be a little wet (sort of a thick brownie batter consistency).  Stir in coconut and toasted sunflower seeds/nuts.

5.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and use about one tablespoon of dough per cookie.  You should be able to get one dozen on a standard cookie sheet as they don’t spread much at all.  Bake each batch for about 6-7 minutes.  (I liked mine best at 6 minutes because they stayed a little gooey.  The batch I cooked for eight minutes got too dry and cakey for my liking.