Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chunk Walnut Cookies

My baby sis, who is not a vegan *yet*, loooooves my chocolate chip walnut cookies. It's one of her favourite desserts ever and if she had her way, I'd be making it every week! A few weeks ago, she went out with our dad to shop for nuts at this speciality store called Manak Mewa which stocks a huge variety of high quality dry fruits and nuts and sells them at reasonable prices. Ever since my parents attended the Reversing Diabetes seminar by Dr. Nandita Shah last November and turned vegan, my dad started to munch on a few nuts and raisins with salad for his mid morning snack instead of the crappy processed biscuits and stuff that he used to eat before. It's turning out to be healthier and cheaper but it calls for a regular visit to Chickpet to shop at Manak Mewa.

But I digress. I was telling you about my sis at the store. She called me with great excitement in her voice and said in one breath, "Akka, you said your stock of walnuts was over no? There's plenty here. I'll bring some, you make me choco chip cookies." She wanted a whole batch to herself this time, as opposed to the one batch I make and share with her, so she asked me to make two batches, "one for you, one for me". I agreed to spoil the brat this time.



The vegan chocolate chips I'd brought back from the US was long over so I told her to pick up some vegan chocolate bars on her way here. Since chocolate bars are a tad overly sweet in my opinion, I halved the quantity of sugar and the cookies were perfect!

I also wanted to make the cookies slightly healthier so I tweaked the recipe around a bit. So these turned out quite different and much much more scrumptious than the already delicious basic chocolate chip cookies I have been making all these years. These have a softer crumb and a texture that's in between a chewy cookie and a cake. It's just amazing what flax seed powder and Bajra can do to baked goods!!

Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chunk Walnut Cookies

Dry ingredients:
2 C All Purpose Flour (Maida)
2 C Pearl Millet Flour (Bajra)
1 1/2 T Baking Powder
2 T Cocoa Powder
Pinch of Salt

Wet ingredients:
1 C Sugar
1/2 C Olive Oil
2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
3 T Flax Seed Powder
2 1/4 C Water

Additions:
1 C Broken Walnuts
4 Bars Dark Chocolate Cut into Chunks

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
Line a baking sheet with aluminium foil.
Sieve together dry ingredients.
Whisk together wet ingredients for a few minutes.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
Stir in the walnuts and chocolate chunks.
Drop onto cookie sheets by spoonfuls.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes.
Transfer to wire rack and cool some more.
Serve warm.
Bite into the soft, gooeyness and be transformed into a state of bliss.



While the cookies were baking, a strange phenomenon occurred. I had negligently left one unbroken walnut half lying around on my kitchen counter (apparently on white paper to get the perfect lighting :oP). I heard a soft shuffling sound and when I looked, I beheld three little zombie veganosaurus monsters walking towards the walnut half with a greedy gleam in their eyes. "Brains, brains, brains", they said. But suddenly...