In recent years, I haven’t been much of a cookie person. I buy them for my son to take to school but otherwise they wouldn’t make my shopping list. However this fall season I’ve found myself stealing a few from my son’s stash to eat with afternoon tea. We have the packaged soft chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty high in fat without much flavor. So I searched online for a seasonal cookie recipe and found pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to be popular. BUT the recipes all contained two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar…not healthy! Thankfully I also found a “Healthier Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie” recipe by Greatist. I appreciated their term “healthier” as cookies in general are not healthy and don’t like when a cookie recipe is entitled “healthy” just because it may be lower in fat or calories than the original version but offers little else.

This truly healthful recipe started with nutrient-dense ingredients like pumpkin, ground flaxseeds, whole grain flour, and dark chocolate. I used their option of replacing all of the butter with unsweetened applesauce and also decreased the sugar by 1/2 cup (with the allowance of adding more dark chocolate chips!). The texture was moist thanks to the pumpkin and applesauce, and the chips gave it a nice decadence. It’s perfect for when you need just a little something sweet but that you can feel good about eating. These are lower in fat but not lower in calories than other cookies, so be sure to enjoy just a few at a time!

Ingredients

2 cups whole-wheat flour (or a half white flour, half whole-wheat mix)

1/2 cup flaxseed meal

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 /2 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk flour, flaxseed meal, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt (if using) together in medium size bowl. Set aside.
3. Mix the applesauce and sugar together. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla to the sugar mixture and mix until thoroughly blended.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix just until well blended.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Drop a tablespoon of batter at a time (or use a cookie scoop) onto baking sheet, spacing each cookie two inches apart.
7. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until the edges begin to turn golden brown. Let sit for a few minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Makes about 36 cookies.