Deceptively Healthy Dessert: Gluten Free Chewy Chocolate M&M Cookies

Welcome Gluten Free Eaters and Dessert Lovers!

Today's recipe comes once again from my lovely bio lab group <3

Meet Team Hunar: Hunar, Caitlin, Caroline, Me

 

Our first cooking experiment together (Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oat Cookies) was such a success, we decided we should bake again while putting together our lab report presentation. That, and, we wanted an excuse to hang out and bake together again. 

The major stipulation for all lab group baking projects is that they have to be Gluten Free, because Caitlin is Gluten Free, and we love her, so we need to make sure she can enjoy the cookies too! 

                                                             

Thanks to Caroline for finding this recipe and suggesting it to the group :) 

Thanks to Caitlin for reinventing the recipe with M&Ms and being an awesome DJ :) 

and of course...thanks to Hunar for bringing "the spunk" ;P

Objective: 

Bake delicious, gluten free, addictive, healthy cookies that will please the "god" of Lab 116. 

Hypothesis: 

Removing the egg yolks and not using flour or butter will increase the health value of cookies and adding cocoa powder and M&Ms will increase the deliciousness. The powdered sugar, when baked, will form a coating for the cookies, to give these soft fudgy cookies some crunch. 

Materials:

• 3 egg whites
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup melted chocolate
• 1/4 cup M&Ms 

Protocol:

1. Use sterile technique. 
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
3. Mix all dry ingredients together
4. Melt chocolate in a microwave safe container (preferably ceramic) in small spurts of 30 seconds each, stirring between each spurt (If you do not follow this protocol you are guaranteed to burn the chocolate and potentially burn the container!!)
5. Add eggs and melted chocolate and mix
6. Add M&Ms and mix
7. Spoon onto baking sheet
8. Bake for about 10 minutes, watching carefully for when they expand, as each oven is different. 
9. Allow to cool
10. Enjoy!!

Results:

The Calories:

Egg Whites: 51 calories

Sugar: 1167 calories

Cocoa: 128 calories

Chocolate: 200 calories

M&Ms: 253 calories

Vanilla Extract: 6 calories

____________________

TOTAL: 1805 calories

For 30 servings, this is about 60 calories per serving. It's a lot of sugar, but the egg whites and lack of butter and flour really make a difference for the health value. 

What went right:

         They're absolutely delicious, and again, our instructor loved them!! 

What went wrong: 

          Nothing :) 

Would I make these again: 

          I'm pretty sure I'm morally obligated to make these again...a few of my hallmates saw me bring them upstairs and I couldn't give them any because they were for the lab class...so look out T3, we'll be having these cookies at some point :) 

Overall, a delicious and relatively healthy dessert! 

If you really need to work this off, it doesn't take a lot of work. 60 calories can be burned off with: 

• 30 minutes of yoga
• 20 minutes of playing pool
• 20 minutes of bowling
• 20 minutes of playing darts

As you can see, these are relatively light activities. That said, every little bit helps!