Nature's Best - Chocolate Sandwich Cookies - January 29, 2013

Chocolate of the Day:

Nature's Best (Cadia product line)
Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
Good
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) / 10.5 oz. (298 g.) in 1 package
Calories: 140 calories for 2 cookies
Purchased from: Piazza's Fine Foods, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #6 of Chocolate and Gluten-Free Cookie Theme Week.

Nature's Best (Brea, CA) is one of the largest privately owned wholesaler-distributors of health foods in the Americas. Their Cadia product line can be found in an increasing number of independent grocery stores, and small chains, such as Piazza's Fine Foods, where I found these chocolate sandwich cookies.

Similar to Nabisco Oreo sandwich cookies, these cookies (from Canada) weren't marked organic (many of the company's products are); however, they were gluten-free. So, I was able to enjoy two of these crisp chocolate wafer style cookies with the vanilla cream middle, reminiscent of childhood.

Did I unscrew the two chocolate cookies so I could eat the cream center? No, that would be playing with my food. Instead I engaged in some dessert landscaping. I crushed one of the sandwich cookies -- transforming it into chocolate dirt -- and packed this sugary soil into an orange, plastic shotglass flowerpot. With the help of a paring knife, a strawberry became a flower in this pot. Et voila, a shotglass dessert with only 75 calories. Chocolate gardening should be fun.

Purely Elizabeth - Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix - January 28, 2013

Chocolate of the Day: 

Purely Elizabeth
Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
Good
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42 g.) / 15.5 oz. (439 g.) total box of mix
Calories: 200 calories (estimate) in 2 cookies
Cost: $8.99 for 1 box of mix
Purchased from: Abe's Market, Michigan (online)

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Gluten-Free Cookie Theme Week.

I was having visions of rack after rack of chocolate chip cookies marching out of the oven, like the multiplying brooms and buckets in Walt Disney's animated film "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Why? This box of Purely Elizabeth Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix (Appetite for Healthy Living LLC - New York, NY) made far more cookies than anticipated -- 41 to be precise.

I didn't mind having extra warm cookies perfuming my kitchen. But, it did take three sequential batches to cook them, and I needed to clear extra counter space to cool three large plates worth of them.

The base for these gluten-free and vegan cookie mix consisted of organic millet, organic almond and garbanzo fava bean flours, as well as chia seeds.

Directions for this mix called for 1/2 cup oil and 1/4 cup of applesauce, which helped establish a cohesive, chewy texture.

The golden brown cookies were dotted with small chocolate chips that seemed the right size for smaller cookies that I made. The cookies were sweetened with a relatively heavy dose of organic coconut palm sugar. While I like the flavor of this sugar -- often touted for its less refined, higher nutritional and lower glycemic properties -- I might use a bit less of this sweetener.

Because there was no raw egg in these cookies, the batter could be eaten (safely) uncooked, or could be enjoyed with other dessert items, e.g., ice cream. I tried this later -- layering cookie dough and crumbs with vanilla ice cream, to make a small shotglass dessert parfait. It reminded me of an oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich. And because I can't have wheat or oats, I appreciated this close facsimile.