Slightly Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies + A Birth Story

I got to bake this past weekend, but it was more of an experiment, really. I debated whether to post this recipe since I kind of threw it together and it is very much in the testing phase, but M and K loved the cookies so much I thought it would be worth recording here. There was also the challenge that they are not the most appetizing looking cookies…

When I opened my cupboard, I saw a chocolate chip cookie recipe on the side of an unopened package of white whole wheat flour, and I remembered that I had gotten a bag of almond flour for no apparent reason last week. I wondered what would happen if I replaced half of the flour with almond flour.

Well, the cookie dough balls flatten out into soupy puddles and start to look like they’re burning almost immediately, I discovered. But then a little magic happens and about seven minutes later, you get yummy crispy edges with a chewy center.

Chocolate chip cookies always make me think of K’s birth. Back in the summer of 2006, I was immensely pregnant and feeling angst. I had just gone in for my 38-week appointment and my OB casually informed me that she would be on vacation on my due date (August 9th) and would be leaving on August 1st for some exotic island that I’ve now blocked from my mind. I was stricken. I really really liked my OB and didn’t want anyone else dealing with the overwhelmingness of birth.

For the next week, I fretted. We were having a record heat wave in Seattle that summer and our tiny apartment was sweltering. In the evenings, M and I would troll air-conditioned malls or settle ourselves in movie theaters (I swore up and down that the baby in my belly kicked to the theme song of Mission Impossible 3). On July 29th around 8pm, at a Barnes & Nobles bookstore, I felt the inevitable tugging at my innards. I calmly put my hand on M’s arm and said, “Honey, I don’t want you to freak out, but I think my contractions are starting.” He freaked out.

Moments later, though, the spasms passed and I had to shame-facedly admit that it was a false alarm. We went home and I instantly started baking chocolate chip cookies. Remember, this was summer in 100-degree weather in our un-air-conditioned apartment. I was nuts. But nothing would stop me from baking cookies and I made batch after batch while watching Battlestar Galactica.

At 2 in the morning, the contractions started in earnest. I shook M awake and made him time them. Four hours later, I was at the hospital, smelling strongly of melted chocolate chips. It would take forever for K to actually arrive into this world and I found myself doing strange hip-gyrating exercises in a local pancake breakfast restaurant — the hospital had kicked us out because I wasn’t dilated enough. M kept consulting our “Pocket Doula” handbook and I inturn kept screaming at him to put the @!$*£# thing away (I am not a screamer and hardly ever curse. Circumstances were dire).

My plans for a natural birth were shelved after 10+ hours of labor and I blissfully sank into the epidural-induced haze. The point? At 6:20pm on July 30th, K was delivered by my rather surprised OB, who had been packing and getting ready for her tropical vacation. K was 10 days early and perfect and I fell in love so hard and I am certain that she smelled like melted chocolate chips too. I believe that K heard my desperate pleas to be born before August 1st, and we continue to share a symbiotic relationship. There were some complications after her birth, but that’s for another day.

So. Chocolate chip cookies. K’s birth. The two will forever be entwined in my mind. And now, I present you a slightly healthier version of the cookie.

Slightly Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields approximately 30 four-inch diameter cookies

1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup almond flour (I used TJ brand)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 package of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used a 12 oz/340g package)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

1. Combine flours, salt and baking soda in a large bowl.
2. Cream sugars with butter in a separate bowl.
3. Add eggs, one at a time and add vanilla extract to the butter-sugar mixture.
4. Add sugar-butter-egg mixture to the flour mixture until just blended.
5. Add chocolate chips.
6. Using two spoons, scoop dough into little balls (about 2-inch diameter) onto a parchment or Silpat lined cookie sheet
7. Bake 7 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.