My son and I can’t get enough of them. Image: Our Stable Table.
This is becoming an expensive habit, but nothing really says “I love you” like homemade cookies, so I’m going with it.
A few years ago, I had to go on a strict elimination diet to keep my son healthy. He was allergic to multiple (dozens) of foods and my milk made him sick, too.
I had to cut one of my all time favorite foods out of my diet: eggs. I ate two soft poached eggs a day at breakfast for years, but that all stopped when we discovered my little babe was severely allergic. I also had to give up other wonderful foods like muffins, cupcakes, mayonnaise, fry sauce, and hollandaise sauce.
Those were sad, sad days for an egg-head like me.
I had to get creative to feed myself and my son. I tried multiple ways to replace eggs in baked dishes and even tried a vegan hollandaise. (Yeah, sorry vegans. I love you and all, but NOPE. Cashews can only do so much.)
The biggest trick was trying to replace eggs AND wheat AND most grains because my son reacted to them terribly through my milk.
Enter the versatile chia seed.
You might have known the chia seed in its former glory: a food pet that sprouts on terracotta presidential heads or in the shape of a sheep or as your favorite garden gnome. It had a catchy jingle that every child born between the years of 1968 and 1988 could sing (along with the Mentos song).
Chia Heads were iconic and weird and probablu the best way to prank someone on Christmas morning.
Little did we know then that the chia seed is packed full of essential fatty acids and are one of the best plant-based sources of omega 3 vitamins.
Somehow, we got it in our minds that chia would taste great in kombucha and pudding and breads and scones. And someone had the genius idea to use it as an egg replacer.
Chia seeds naturally gel and expand when added to water, binding everything in their paths. This was a great discovery for a mama who couldn’t seem to find great alternatives to baking with eggs. One tablespoon of chia mixed into two tablespoons of water and a 10 minute rest on the kitchen counter made eggless, binding magic.
Luckily, my son is growing out of his food allergies as he gets older, and I am so thankful. Trying to feed toddlers in general is a massive exercise in creativity and will, and trying to feed a toddler with multiple and severe food allergies feels almost impossible.
Chia seeds add a little extra nutrition to the things he can safely eat now and are easy to sneak in. I also don’t make treats he can’t eat, so I opt for my chia egg replacer almost daily. (We like and eat a fair number of treats at my house.)
Our favorite eggless, grainless, easy treats are salted dark chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies.
I use an all-natural sweetener called erythritol to cut back on the sugar (eff you, PCOS). My son and I can’t get enough of them. We share with friends, and they also can’t get enough of them. This is becoming an expensive habit, but nothing really says “I love you” like homemade cookies, so I’m going with it.
Ingredients:
1 jar creamy peanut butter
1 cup granulated sweetener of your choice (I use erythritol, but regular sugar or coconut sugar will work just fine)
½ cup chopped dark chocolate
3 Tbsp ground chia seeds
5 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda (scant)
1 tsp baking powder (leveled)
kosher sea salt
Directions:
In a small bowl, combine water, chia seeds, and apple cider vinegar. Mix well and set aside. Science is happening. On an PBS set laboratory somewhere Bill Nye is proud.
In a large mixing bowl, add peanut butter, sweetener, vanilla extract, baking soda and powder and mix. Don’t worry about making it perfect, just mix enough to get everything kind of cohesive. Like your vision board decopage.
Add chia seed mixture and chocolate chips and blend thoroughly with a heavy duty spatula. You’re strong, you can do it.
Scoop dough into rounded golf ball-size pieces. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and criss-cross/flatten with a fork. This might sound complicated, but it’s really not.
Bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes. You want them to be ever-so-slightly brown but not much.
Allow them to partially cool before transferring them to an actual cooling rack. Or throw caution to the wind and burn your hands while destroying your cookies. YOU DO YOU, PADMA.
Enjoy while watching your shows or as a treat for being science-y. You’re basically a magician, so be sure to congratulate yourself while you eat your fifth cookie in 10 minutes.
