Chocolate Dipped Cookie Balls

I finally threw away the cinnamon roll failures. I ate about half and then gave up. I’m a glutton for punishment.

Then, as of Saturday, the ants moved back in…to the pantry. Sigh. This is the second time it has happened. I usually have ant traps in the house, and they let me know when I have to replace them, but apparently they were determined this time. I was getting out the ingredients for a cake and found them doing a conga line down the pantry wall. So instead of doing everything I wanted to do, I spent the next two hours cleaning out the pantry. On the plus side, it look awesome now. I was able to clean out some things that definitely needed to be purged, and was able to reorganize some stuff. C’est la vie [PS, the cake turned out awesome. I made it anyway.].

A little bit ago, I received a package from Ron at NuNaturals giving me the chance to try out some of their stuff. I’m pretty much late to the stevia game, but I’m always down to try new things. The premise is no-calorie sweetener that doesn’t affect your blood sugar and doesn’t leave a horrid aftertaste. This is super appealing since diabetes runs in the family, so it’s nice to be able to bake things and be able to share them with everyone. I haven’t had a chance to try everything, but it’s definitely not joking around with the sweetness. It can have up to 300x the sweetness of regular sugar, so you use much less of it–especially since I don’t love super sweet things. I love that the it comes in powder and fun dropper forms so you can ration it how you see fit. Who doesn’t feel all mad scientist while using a dropper? Don’t lie. I’ve been using it in tea and smoothies, and it’s definitely a process to find your level of sweetness. But once you do? It’s awesome.

The MoreFiber Baking Blend is pretty genius. Reducing the sugar and adding more fiber. So, that pretty much makes cookies and cakes healthy? Right? When substituting this for sugar in recipes, it’s recommended that you use only use half the amount since it’s that sweet. It’s a powder and blends right in. It’s definitely not as cheap as conventional sugar, but it’s bursting with a ton of healthier qualities. That’s worth the price. Absolutely.

My first foray into baking with it was these cookie bites. They’re doughy, and they stay doughy after a few days. I am definitely a chewy cookie fan, and these don’t disappoint. They’re basically a sugar cookie in taste, and then are dipped in melted chocolate. Yum.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup NuNaturals MoreFiber Baking Blend
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons dark chocolate chips

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350° and line a baking pan with a silpat or parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, whisk together the dry ingredients.
3. Add the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated. The dough should be stiff and sticky.
4. Roll the dough into balls by the tablespoonful. Space them out on the pan.
5. Bake for 10 minutes.
6. While the cookies are cooling, use your favorite method to melt chocolate [hello lazy–I used the microwave].
7. Dip each cookie into the chocolate. Use a butter knife to help spread it on my evenly if you’re into that sort of Type-A tomfoolery [confession: I was].
8. Enjoy.