Sometimes you need to forgo the butter and opt for something healthier, especially if you've used a lot of butter in other things--or you have an avocado that needs using. Enter these cookies. They full of "good fat" avocado and dark chocolate, which has some health benefits. That said, this is still a cookie, not really "health food." The cookies also taste really good--soft, squishy and full of rich, dark chocolate taste. So try them as something new for your dessert table. You don't have to tell people what's in them (until after they try the cookies). Yum. Yum. Yum, yum, yum.
Dark Chocolate Avocado Cookies -- Makes 24+
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 very ripe avocado, mashed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla
2 cups of white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1 cup of dark chocolate chunks
1 cup of chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and coat baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray or line them with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine the sugars, avocado, eggs, and vanilla and beat them well with a wooden spoon. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa powder and combine the ingredients just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chunks and walnuts until well distributed. Drop the batter by tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2 inches in between. With wet hands, shape the cookies into disks about 1/2 inch thick. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes until they're just set. The cookies will look soft in the middle. That's fine. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheets a few minutes before removing them to cool completely.
