(almost) guilt-free chocolate chip cookies

While I’m trying not to reward the completion of June of Doom with food, I was feeling I was due an indulgence in the sweets department.

One of my new favorite things to do in the kitchen is experiment with how to take favorite recipes and lighten them up, without sacrificing flavor. So where better to start than the classic Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Source

But before we begin, can we take a minute to re-live this classic Friends moment where Phoebe can’t remember her grandmother’s “famous” chocolate chip cookie recipe? I can’t embed the video here, but click this link to watch the clip.

You Americans always butcher the French language. Hehe.

Anyway, back to the lightened-up version of this recipe. Below is the original (printed on the back of any chocolate chip bag) and the items highlighted in pink are ones that I altered to cut fat and calories.

2-1/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 sticks butter
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

So, as the original recipe stands, here are the nutrition facts for one cookie, assuming you don’t eat dough like I do and get a full three dozen (36) cookies out of your batch. Considering NO ONE can eat just one cookie, the calories add up quickly!

Now, with some subsitutions….

…the ingredients list looks like this:

1-1/8 cup all purpose flour
1-1/8 cup wheat flour
3/4 cup Truvia baking blend
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 cup Chobani plain non-fat greek yogurt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
2 egg beaters
2 cups chocolate chips

I’m not a fan of “fake” sugars (if you need something sweetened, just use real sugar, or maple or agave syrup to sweeten it), but Truvia is finally something I can get on board with. First of all, the ingredients list is all of three items. Second, none of those items are fourteen-syllable chemical names I can’t recognize. We keep this on-hand in packet form for Page’s coffee as well and we’re both fans.

Back to the batter, which turned out just as delish as the regular kind…

… and the nutrition facts are much more to my liking:

I have to sidebar for a second and make note of two of my favorite kitchen tools, both gifted to me from my culinarily-gifted BFF. She taught me the importance of Silpat baking mats (no more scraping cookie burn off the baking sheet!) and a cookie scoop (hello, perfectly measured balls of dough and consistently sized cookies!).

And while they were a bit fluffier than the original recipe (most likely the egg beaters and the sub of half wheat flour), the taste was just as amazing! (Note to self – you can’t see the cookies in photos against the counters!)

Happy Monday! Hope your (short!) week is SWEET.