(healthy?) chocolate chip cookies

No, I probably wouldn't say healthy...there's still a whole cup of brown sugar! But they are healthIER, and delicious, and vegan.  That's right, no eggs.  Only coconut oil, applesauce, and my husband's own flour creation.

I love to bake. But, how do you bake as a vegan, right? Wrong! I've found so many recipes for awesome baked goods with a healthy twist.  Usually I am fine to accept that healthy baked goods will taste like healthy baked goods, if you no what I mean... :/  And every once in a while, I feel the need for some good old comfort food.  And these are the chocolate chips cookies that do the trick!  Enjoy

the recipe:

Here is the recipe I started with.  And if you like to follow recipes strictly, read no further and this recipe will do you fine...However, I'll also include the variations we came up with.  

1 c brown sugar

¼ c maple syrup

½ c oil

¼ c applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 c flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

dash nutmeg

1½ c chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl, beat together sugar, syrup, and oil. It will become smooth and even in consistency after a little while; don’t skimp on this step!
2. Beat in vanilla and applesauce.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, soda, salt, and nutmeg.
4. Add dry mixture to wet; mix well.
5. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Form into 1″ balls (or whatever size you prefer) and bake on greased sheets at 350 degrees for 6-10 minutes. I found 7 minutes to be perfect for a soft center. *Don't be alarmed but these spread out a ton, and ended up flatter than a pancake...Still delicious though!* 

I thought these were almost too sweet; next time we will probably only do 1/2 cup brown sugar and compensate with some extra honey or something.  

Instead of the 1/4 cup maple syrup, we did some combination of honey and agave, so you don't get the maple-y flavor, but it's a little more natural.  

As far as that vague "oil" that it calls for, I chose coconut oil.  Healthy, but runny.  

Unsweetened applesauce worked perfectly, vanilla, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg, all stayed the same.  

Flour -- we had been wanting to try almond and oatmeal flours for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity to experiment.  We just threw a bunch of almonds and oats into our blender and blended till it was as fine as we could get it.  Even though we used two cups of this flour, I think it didn't absorb the same way as real flour or something, so we had to add almost a whole extra cup of flour (we used buckwheat flour, but whatever) in order to get the dough to be firm enough.