Mookies

Overview

Mookies

Chocolate Chip

Web Site Links

Mookies began life when I started a quest for a reduced-calorie cookie.  I had already gone through many batches of flat puddles of butter and flour before realizing I needed to at least double the amount of flour in the recipe for Toll-House Chocolate Chip cookies listed on the back of a package of Nestle Chocolate Chips.  To add texture, I started using whole wheat flour for half my flour.  Then I checked the calories and found I was doing about 450 calories per cookie!  (I made my cookies big - about two dozen per four cups of flour.)  Upon further study, I found out about a third of those calories came from the butter or shortening.  When I checked with my nutrition-knowledgeable sweetheart, she told me I had to have some fat in the cookie and all fats had as many calories.  I gave up my cookies.

Then one glorious day, she came across an article saying various fruits could be pureed and used in place of fat for cookies.  They suggested prunes.  So, I went down to the store to buy pureed prunes.  Someone please correct me if I am mistaken, but you can't buy pureed prunes.  So how does one go about pureeing a prune?  I've come to learn most every country mother knows how to puree but this city father had no idea.  But I do know how to use the 'Web and I found instructions.  (I can't give them here as that is a great trade secret!)  It turns out dates work well also.  Someone suggested apple sauce but I only get a lump of mush using apple sauce.

For those who figure out how to puree a prune and want to try this, I'll let you in on a secret.  Replacing all of the fat with prunes works but gives a chewier cookie.  Put some vegetable oil back in to alter the chewiness a bit.

Several batches of cookies later, I had found an excellent mix of prunes, flours, oil, eggs, sugar, and chocolate chips!  But I like to hold a cookie a man can be proud to be seen with.  My typical cookie is about three inches across, more than an inch think, and weighs 3-5 ounces.  A friend saw me eating one and exclaimed they were more like a muffin than a cookie - maybe a Mookie!

Then I got a request for an Oatmeal-Raisin Mookie from the aforementioned sweetheart.  (I personally don't know why anyone would voluntarily eat oatmeal but then she likes peas so what can I expect?)  So I added some oatmeal, raisins, barley, and several other grains and removed the chocolate chips and my "MultiGrain-Raisin" Mookie came into creation.  Going back to just flour for the grain and adding ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg created the Ginger Mookie.  I've also experimented with bananas and peanut butter.

My Mookie plan is to make and sell a few to see how it goes.  Maybe someday Mookies will gather a following and I will work with a larger bakery and distributor to make them more available.