Sourdough chocolate chip cookies without butter

I got my bloodwork back the other day and I was pretty shocked to see high LDL and total cholesterol. And although the amount they were high wasn’t by much, I expected it to be much better.

In a nutshell, cholesterol is only found in animal products, and I was only having a small amount of meat 1-2x/week and a small amount at that. What I wasn’t compromising on, though, was my butter consumption. I love butter! I slather it on my toast and use it in all my pastries recipes and we like to have some sort of sweet on hand for when a craving comes along so we don’t eat the store junk.

My blood sugar labs were beautiful along with triglycerides so I know my efforts there have been much rewarded. I decided to give making cookies a try, this time using avocado oil.

Why Avocado Oil?

I’ve posted before about my love of extra virgin olive oil, and how the really good quality EVOO has a spicy, strong flavor to it that grows on you. That said. It’s not really awesome in cookie recipes when you want the other flavors to shine. If avoiding seed oils and butter, another great option is avocado oil. I used Chosen brand since they are known to be authentic. Avocado oil is made from pressing the green fruit of the avocado, not the seed, so it’s not a seed oil - same as olives.

The Base

The Changes

Ingredients changed:

• I replaced 1 stick of butter with 210 grams of avocado oil, or 2/3 cups.
• I replaced 85 g of brown sugar with 40 grams of date syrup and a tsp of molasses
• I used 9 grams of baking powder instead of 6 grams of baking soda. Sometimes I forget and use the two interchangeably
• 300 grams of soft grains - I used barley
• 1 big spoonful of sourdough starter

Directions Changed:

• Step 2: Instead of creaming the butter and the sugar until smooth in the second step, we cream the eggs and sugar until smooth and fluffy
• Step 5: While the mixture is still on, slowly add the extract, and then the avocado oil until well mixed together.
• Step 7.5: cover the bowl and let the dough ferment in the fridge overnight or up to five days. The flavor will become more complex the longer it ferments.
• I baked these at 350 F convection or 375 F in a regular oven for 8 minutes or until temperature reached in the center of the cookie. I prefer 190 F for delicate, moist cookies.
• Let cool before eating so the structure can solidify more.

I turned the remainder of the batch into peanut butter cookies by adding two big spoonfuls of peanut butter and a little extra flour to the dough to get a consistency I liked, and put them back in the fridge to ferment longer.

The Final Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 150 g sugar
• 40 g date syrup
• 1 tsp molasses
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 210 g avocado oil
• 6 g sea salt
• 9 g baking powder
• 300 grams soft grains (soft wheat, spelt, barley)
• 1 spoonful of sourdough starter
• 1 cup mix-ins

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F convection or 375 F normal oven.
2. Cream the eggs and sugar (or flax eggs and sugar) until smooth and a little lighter in color.
3. While the ingredients are creaming, mill your grains as fine as you can into a separate bowl.
4. Add the remaining dry ingredients to the flour, and mix together so the leavening is evenly distributed, and set to the side.
5. While the mixer is still on, slowly add the extract, followed by the avocado oil, and then the sourdough starter until the mixture is fully incorporated.
6. Turn off the mixer and add the dry ingredients. Mix on LOW and JUST ENOUGH to incorporate the dry ingredients. Do not over mix!
7. Add any mix-ins, mixing on low for 1-2 seconds on LOW speed.
8. Cover the bowl so the dough doesn't dry out, and place into your refrigerator for 1-5 days to ferment.
9. Scooop the dough into equal portions and bake until the center of the cookie reaches 190 F for soft, chewy cookies, and 200 F for crunchy cookies.
10. Let COOL 10 minutes before moving the cookies so they don't fall apart before the dough solidifies, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Make it Vegan?

If you can't eat eggs or wanted to make this recipe vegan, there is one more swap you'll need to make. Swap the 2 eggs for 2 tbsp of ground flax seed mixed with 2 tbsp of water. You may want to add an additional tbsp of water to the mixture since it'll be mixing with the sugar before adding the other ingredients.

I would also advise adding 1-2 tsp liquid sunflower lecithin to the flax egg ingredients to boost the emulsification of the liquid and fats in the later steps. This is optional, but helpful.

Dough too Wet?

If you feel the dough could use a little more flour, do so slowly. 1-2 tbsp at a time remembering it'll take a few minutes for that flour to absorb the fat and other liquids. Alternately, you could add a tbsp of cornstarch to help with the consistency a bit. I THOUGHT it would be too wet when scooping and baking the dough, but I got the spread and end result I was looking for without it.