thick & chewy chocolate chip cookies — lightened up

Ingredients

• 1 c. potato starch
• 1 1/2 c. tapioca starch
• 2 c. oat flour (about 2 1/2-3 c. old fashioned oats blended)
• 1/2 c. soy flour | or toasted quinoa flour*
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. xantham gum** (do not need if you're using wheat flour)
• 1 c. agave
• 1 c. coconut sugar | or other unrefined sugar
• 2 tsp. blackstrap molasses
• 1 TBS. pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 c. Ener-G egg replacer*** + 1/2 c. warm water
• 1 c. pureed banana (about 2 medium bananas)
• 1 c. organic coconut oil, room temperature (semi-solid & not melted)
• 3 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
• *OR in place of ALL these flours, use 4 1/2-5 c. of unbleached white wheat flour
• **xantham gum helps bind the flours in place of gluten. If you're sensitive to xantham gum, flax seed does a similar thing, but will add a little nutty flavor (& color). I have not made these with flax seed, but 3-4 TBS. of ground flax seed added to the flour, in place of the xantham gum should do the trick.
• ***You can use an equal amount of ground flax seed instead of the egg replacer, though I used the Enger-G egg replacer because it has an absolutely neutral flavor, which is what I wanted with these cookies.

Instructions

1. First off, these can be made gluten-free, or with wheat flour. Obviously, I made mine with the gluten-free flours, but if you're not into that, go ahead & use regular white (wheat) flour & skip the xantham gum. If you use wheat flour, start out with 4 1/2 c. flour & add up to 1/2 c. more if needed. Also, these are lightened up version (about half the fat they could have) because of the pureed banana. If you don't have bananas around, you can just use more oil (about 3/4 cup more coconut oil). Applesauce may work as a substitute for banana, but I haven't tried it with this recipe, so if you try the applesauce, let me know how it turns out. I don't like to do 100% banana or applesauce, otherwise the cookies turn out cake-y & too fruity. Half banana & half oil is the right balance, I feel, in achieving a lighter cookie, but not one that tastes "lowfat" & retains a chocolate chip cookie flavor without tasting like banana.
2. Preheat oven to 375 F.
3. Sift all flours with baking soda & xantham gum. Set aside.
4. In a standing mixer, blend agave, coconut sugar, molasses, coconut oil & vanilla.
5. In a small bowl, whisk egg replacer & water until whipped & frothy.
6. Add egg replacer &pureed banana the agave mixture & blend until incorporated.
7. Add flour to mixer & mix on medium until all flour is absorbed. Fold in chocolate chips & mix until all chocolate chips are evenly distributed.
8. Using a medium or large cookie scoop, scoop cookies on baking sheet & bake for 11 minutes (for small cookies) or 13-14 (for large cookies) in preheated oven on an baking stone or greased cookie sheet. The cookies should still look slightly uncooked when you remove them from the oven. If you let them bake until they look "done," they'll be dry & overcooked.
9. Remove cookies & allow to cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes before letting cool on a cookie rack.
10. Freeze leftover dough in rolls to use for later use (no need to defrost, just add 2-3 minutes to cooking time). Cookies should be eaten within 2-3 days or freeze leftover cookies for up to 3 months in air tight ziploc freezer bag.

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