New rule: all Mondays need to start with cookies. Particularly, Mondays when you go from an awesome weekend with new friends, tons of fun exercise, great food and more swag than you know what to do with to being stuck in an over air-conditioned work conference in the middle of a corporate park while in one of the most beautiful cities in the country in a short 47 minute drive.
I tried to mentally prepare. It didn’t work.
I made these last week in preparation for this trip knowing that if I rely on conference food I’ll be served sugar laden pastries with suspect jelly in the middle for breakfast, tollhouse ice cream cookie sandwiches for a snack and some cream doused pasta dish for lunch.
I can usually find better breakfast and lunch options with some success, but finding a decent snack that tastes good and has something besides sugar as the main ingredient is no easy feat in a convention center.
To give you some idea of my priorities when traveling…
Things I forgot to pack for this past weekend? Sunscreen, sunglasses, an outfit for the plane ride home, enough socks and business cards.
Things I didn’t forget to pack for this past weekend? These cookies.
They’ve got 10g of protein each and they’re filled with goodies like almond butter, cherries and walnuts. They’re sweet enough to feel like a treat around 2pm when everyone is flocking to the ice cream sandwich social break and healthy and hearty enough to double as breakfast in a pinch.
If only they could replace the booth, the heels and the business talk with a cabin, sneakers and a hike.
- ½ cup almond flour
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- ¼ cup rolled oats
- 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons dried cherries, chopped
- ¼ cup walnuts, chopped
- ¼ cup almond butter
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
- Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Whisk together all wet ingredients in a small bowl.
- Pour wet into dry and mix with a spatula until fully incorporated.
- Drop cookie dough onto baking sheet in large spoonfuls.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes. They’ll still be soft to the touch, but starting to brown on the bottoms.
- Let cool on sheet for 2-3 minutes before transferring to cool completely on a wire rack.
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
Yum! Your cookies sound delish! I need to make a healthy snack for the week to prevent bad snacking and your cookies would be perfect! I love that you didn’t add sugar!
Unless I make a list, I am sure to forget packing an essential or two. But, let’s face it – cookies even trump underwear. Especially cookies with that much protein that DON’T look like hockey pucks! Definitely making these this weekend.
Ah! Can’t wait to hear all about BLEND! I’m so sad I missed it!
These cookies could definitely power me through a Monday – I LOVE LOVE LOVE dried cherries!
this has got to be one cookie that will keep me satiated for a while cause of the 10g of protein!! i love it! and i hope you’re having a good time at the conference
they’re all just so fun!!
I’m surprised your rule wasn’t “everyday should start with cookies”
The food at conferences is one of my least favourite things – I hate coming back feeling all bloated and weighed down with crap. I’ve started taking my own treats as well so I can at least feel vaguely healthy. Plus if it’s an excuse to have cookies for breakfast, I’m all for it.
Love this! I like your rule for Mondays but let’s make it M-F
They look perfectly thick!
This is quite possibly the best Monday Rule, ever.
Can’t wait to hear about the weekend and see pictures. From what I’ve gathered it looked like a complete blast, I hope I can go next year! Hoping the rest of your trip sails by quickly for you.
I can eat these cookies for breakfast, lunch, or snacks! Awesome and packed with all good stuff. You have convinced me to buy coconut oil and I did last week. Got a huge thing for half the price because I happened to be at the store when they had it on special. I am absolutely loving yet and yet have to use it for baking.
These look perfect and chewy and thick. I bet the flavor combo is just perfect, too!
I want your table cloth.
I really like the vanilla protein powder I have now, and I bet it would be great in these.
Ahem. You’re making my to-bake list longer and longer by the day, Gina
The pics that I’ve seen from the retreat look like everyone had a blast. Hope you had so much fun, girl!
hehe, that’s my goal
10 Grams per cookie?! I can appreciate how great that is since embarking on my own mission to consume more protein. I will definitely be making these!
Your cookies look delicious! I’m always looking for healthy snack ideas with extra protein. It’s great to have a cookie that you can feel good about eating. Most cookies leave me feeling sick from too much sugar, but these sound perfect.
I feel your pain – I forgot my business cards on a recent trip too, and it was a food blogger conference – fail! Love the sound of these cookies!
I printed blog cards for Blend, got them the day before I left and then left them in my car the entire time and handed out not a single one. total fail.
These look DELICIOUS!!!
These look delicious and I love that they’re sugarfree, too bad coconut flour is hard to get (and expensive) here.
I am horrible about packing, I always forget something. But you remember the most important! These sound wonderful! And I have everything in my pantry to make them
Yummy these look amazing! Pinning now
Those look delicious!! And I love the ingredient list – and even more so, LOVE that there is ZERO added sugar. I will definitely be making these soon
Hi Gina,
I came across your blog via Foodgawker and have made several of your recipes. Your blog is definitely on my list of weekly blog-readings! These cookies look absolutely delicious- I can’t wait to make them! Thanks a bunch!!!
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer! That’s so great to hear
I just found your site from fitfluential on twitter and pinned your recipe. It looks really good and I definitely want to try it!
I was thinking about some way to make protein cookies today because I was craving something like that! These look like the perfect fix
I’m excited to try them out soon! What protein powder do you use by the way?
Hi Gina! I just stumbled upon your blog. I love it here! So many mouthwatering recipes I want to try. I’m a runner too.
These cookies look incredible. I”ma lways looking for new recipes to add to my sweet + healthy recipe list!
Hi Sally, thanks for stopping by
Monday’s are definitely a good day for cookies. I am having such a hard time finding dried fruit without added sugar! Might have to make a Whole Foods trip soon. Glad you had fun at Blend. It sounds like a great time. Maybe next year!
DEFINITELY making these- I love this recipe!! And have I told you how beautiful your photographs are??? Wow.
It was so great meeting you this weekend… I can’t wait to do it all again next year! Hope you’re recovering well.
Thank you, Lauren
It was so great meeting you this weekend too!
Yessss. I love cookies like I love cake. These look fantastic! I hope you’re having a good rest of your trip in CO!
This makes me feel very hungry now and it looks definitely perfect for my kids and my loving husband too..
I love your recipes! I am going to make these too!! Protein plus cookies is a win-win.
Just made these using flax egg for the eggs and left out the protein powder. Added a Tbs cacoa nibs. Yummy! Even my kids liked them.
These look awesome! I think that’s always something missing from breakfast cookies, protein! I really need to try these though, they look so yummy on top of having an amazing ingredients list.
hello hello. Not sure if you will see this comment since this post is a few days old
But I made these last night and I was confounded because I don’t have any coconut flour, so I wasn’t sure how to substitute. My googling efforts told me that apparently coconut flour is super absorptive so I can’t sub it 1:1 with something else because I would have to adjust my other ratios. I was having a sweet craving and I was in a bind!
So in a moment of desperation I took some flaked (sweetened, sadly) coconut and pulsed it up as fine as I could to a flour-ish consistency. The cookies came out really smooth and flat, didn’t look anything like the picture – and they were pretty dry. Did I really screw up that bad?
I’ll definitely look into finding some coconut flour next time though…
Hi Melissa- your googling efforts were right…coconut flour is hard to find a substitute for. You would’ve been better off using a different “regular” flour rather than pulsed coconut flakes, especially sweetened ones unfortunately and I’m sure that’s why the result was a flat & dry cookie.
If you make them according to the directions, they won’t come out that way
thanks gina – would you have used WW flour, or white flour, and would you have subbed it 1:1 or changed the amount? I’m such a baking newb
I probably would’ve gone with whole wheat pastry flour (not regular ww) or spelt. I’m really not sure if it’s 1:1, nor can I vouch for how it will turn out since I haven’t tried it that way. I’d go by how the mixture looks to see if it’s 1:1 or not adding it in increments as you go. Sorry I’m not much help on this! coconut flour is really a hard one to speculate on. If it were a regular flour, I’d be much more willing (and confident) to say what to switch it up with.
these look great! high protein is only way to go when it comes to baked goods in my opinion
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Nutrition facts?
I just made a version of these, and my 5yo loves them (3yo not so much) and even hubby liked ‘em, which is rare! I subbed ww pastry flour and extra almond meal for protein powder. In the future, planning to use more dried cherries. Oh, and I used the Trader Joes almond butter w roasted flax seeds; yummy!
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