Salted Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

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I’ve made these cookies for years, and they are always a hit. The original recipe came from a church cookbook my mom had from her childhood — the type where everyone in the congregation submitted a favorite family recipe, and it was printed into a little book with a plastic spiral binding. This recipe can easily become somewhat of a “kitchen sink” cookie if you’d like, where you can throw in whatever you have on hand — walnuts, pecans, raisins, dried cranberries, etc. I recommend always keeping the coconut in the recipe — it won’t taste like coconut, but gives the cookie the best kind of chewiness.

Salted Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields: 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened to room temperature

• 1 egg (or 1 flax egg for vegan cookies)

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 cup white sugar

• 1/4 cup shredded coconut

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cups oatmeal

• 1 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• Chocolate chips (I prefer dark chocolate)

• Flaky sea salt to sprinkle on top after baking (I love Maldon sea salt)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350º F

• Cream butter, eggs, sugars, and vanilla extract in a stand mixer or hand mixer.

• Gradually add in dry ingredients except the chocolate chips. Mix well.

• Stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon (stand mixer won’t work well for this). I always just eyeball the amount and am generous when it comes to chocolate – but it’s probably about 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

• Scoop onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

• Bake for 6-9 minutes until very lightly browned on top — err on the side of under-baking, unless you like really crispy cookies. The cookies will still cook a little after being pulled out of the oven, so it’s good to pull them out slightly before you think they’re ready.

• Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

• Sprinkle cookies with flaky sea salt.

If you make and enjoy this recipe, please share a photo on Instagram and tag @flavourphoto — I’d love to see!

Dairy-Free Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

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Dairy-Free Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 14-oz (400 mL) can of full-fat coconut milk (usually found in the international aisle of the grocery store — don’t use standard coconut milk, as the full-fat part is crucial)

• 14-oz (400 mL) can of coconut cream (also called “cream of coconut” — if you can’t find this, just buy 2 cans of full-fat coconut milk)

• Honey, agave, sugar, or other preferred sweetener

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 tsp mint extract

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• Mini chocolate chips (the brand Enjoy Life is completely dairy-free)

• Green food coloring (if desired)
  

1. Chill cans of coconut milk/cream overnight. When you open the cans, the liquid may be separated - don’t worry, that’s normal!

2. Blend the chilled coconut milk/cream together until smooth. I used a blender since I didn’t have an ice cream maker or food processor at the time. (If you have an ice cream maker, definitely use it! My results were still great but an ice cream maker would make it even creamier/more similar to dairy ice cream, because it aerates the mixture as it stirs it.)

3. Add in sweetener to taste. I made mine a little too sweet, so I recommend starting with a smaller amount and adding to it as you taste. Maybe start with a couple of tablespoons or 1/4 cup sweetener, taste, then add as needed!

4. Add in vanilla, mint, then chocolate chips to your preference of chocolatey-ness. If you want your ice cream to be that beautiful minty green, add in drops of food coloring until it’s the color you want!

5. Pour mixture into a loaf pan (line with parchment paper if you want to keep the pan easier to clean later), and freeze until it’s frozen solid!

Notes:
If you don’t have an ice cream maker and want the ice cream to be more creamy/aerated like dairy ice cream, I read online that you can freeze the ice cream for 30 minutes, then pull it out and stir it up, freeze another 30 minutes, stir, and continue for 3 hours until it’s really hardening up. I did not do this and it was still pretty creamy.

You can also use fresh mint leaves instead of extract/coloring. I read that you can blend 1/2 cup of fresh mint leaves into the mixture (use a blender or food processor so it chops the leaves up - in an ice cream maker you’d just have lots of whole leaves in your ice cream!). This should turn the ice cream a nice color of green as well as make it very minty!