Lisa Jobs offers this recipe for Wonderful White Chocolate Chip-Cherry Cookies excerpted from her book Sensational Stevia Desserts:
Wonderful White Chocolate Chip-Cherry Cookies
Serving Size: 2 cookies o Total Servings: 13 (26 cookies)
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 tsp. stevia extract (minimum to add, add more based on sweetness preference)
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups unbleached flour
- 3/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 1/2 cup unsweetened dried cherries
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350° F. Place parchment paper on two cookie sheets. Beat eggs, stevia and vanilla extract with electric mixer. Add butter and blend well (The mixture will not "cream" as it does in traditional sugar recipes, rather the butter will be separate from the eggs. However, it will incorporate when dry ingredients are added.).
Sift flour, baking powder and salt, then add half to egg mixture. Mix well. Add the balance of the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Dough will be thick. Process dried cherries in food processor until in large bits. Fold chips and cherries into dough mixture.
Shape into 1 1/4" balls and press down with hand until about 2" flat
onto baking sheets. Bake for 10 to12 minutes or until bottom of cookie
becomes slightly browned. Cool on wire racks.
Sugar Comparison
Nutrition Facts/Serving
2 cookies
| This Recipe |
Traditional "Sugar" Recipe |
| Calories - 172 |
284- over 60% more! |
| Carbohydrates - 17g |
39g- More than double! |
| Total Sugars - 6g |
27g- 4.5 times more! |
| Fiber - less than 1g |
|
| Fat - 10g |
12g- 20% more! |
| Cholesterol - 46mg |
39mg |
| Sodium - 90mg |
124mg |
| Protein - 3g |
3 g |
Variation I: White Chocolate Chip-Cranberry Cookies
Replace cherries with dried cranberries. You can find great dried
cranberries at Whole Foods Market or in the bulk foods section of some
health food grocers. They cost more than most but are unsweetened,
fresh and taste great!
Variation II: Chocolate Chip Cookies
Replace white chocolate chips for regular chocolate chips, increase
stevia to 1 tsp. and reduce baking powder to teaspoon.
Lisa''s Note: These cookies do not brown on top like cookies made with sugar, so first check the bottom of the cookies for browning. You can also put a toothpick in the center of one and see if it''s dry. If so, then the cookie is done. The result will be a soft, cake-like "wonderful" cookie!
Also, the dried cherries I used in this recipe are dried, pitted, tart Montmorency cherries from Kariba Farms. If you can''t find this brand, try to get dried cherries with little or no added sugar.
White chocolate isn't really "chocolate" at all because it contains only the fat from the cocoa bean and other non-chocolate ingredients. So it's important to choose white chocolate chips or baking bars that contain only cocoa butter as the "fat" ingredient. Avoid products that are all sugar, hard vegetable fat and have artificial chocolate flavoring. You see, the labeling rules for chocolate don''t apply to white chocolate, so you need to read labels! Ghirardelli is one brand that has cocoa butter for a better chocolate flavor and contains less artificial ingredients.
(Excerpted from Sensational Stevia Desserts by Lisa Jobs, Healthy Lifestyle Publishing LLC Copyright© 9/05)