Chocolate Chip Cookies Made Without Eggs...using Yoghurt instead.

Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies with Yoghurt...so soft. What do you do when you have some yoghurt that needs to be used up?...make chocolate chip cookies of course. I've been known to make plenty of baked goods with ingredients that need to be used up. Recently I made some chocolate-avocado-almond butter cookies...where the avocado was used in place of all the butter. Now, that was different...different, but edible:)...But through all the experimenting that goes on in the kitchen, you learn a ton of valuable information...like the fact that avocado doesn't melt as would the butter...so the cookies never really spread out. Still need to tweak the avocado cookie recipe a bit:). But this recipe for chocolate chip cookies fared much better...

When making these eggless cookies I went off a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe and adjusted ingredients to go a bit healthier...I cut down the amount of sugar, the amount of chocolate chips, substituted some of my yoghurt for the egg, and replaced some of the butter with a bit of extra-light olive oil. Because I used only a bit of butter, the cookies don't spread out very much....so you'll need to press each ball of dough down a bit. This way the cookies will bake evenly...and look like a cookie:). I love this recipe because you can actually use one bowl to mix all of the ingredients(apart from melting the butter)....and it's also easy and super quick to whip up a batch. The baked cookies were nice and soft... they sort of reminded me of the Grandma's cookies I used to eat back during my college years....

If you are allergic to eggs... or maybe can't have eggs in your diet, you may want to give this recipe a try...and let me know what you think. Even if you aren't allergic to eggs, but you like soft cookies, this might be worth making. And because we rather liked these cookies, I thought I'd share them...even if it is for my own personal reference:). I'll be making these again for sure. Hope you enjoy...

Note: While I used all purpose flour, I am sure you can play around with a variety of flours...oat, whole wheat, spelt and coconut would probably be good ones.

Tip: Feel free to increase the sugar if you like... or just use all brown sugar, which will give you a caramel-y flavor. You can add more chocolate( even varying the type used) and even include some cinnamon. You can opt to use all melted butter or even substitute some coconut oil.

You will need:

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup extra light olive oil

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup sugar

1 TBS pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup plain Greek yoghurt

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/3 - 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips*

1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped, optional

*now, I put a range here...in case you would like to add more chocolate. For the first batch, I added 1 1/2 cups...chocolate-y, and probably a bit too sweet. I also made a batch with 1/3 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup pecans...felt they were just right for us.

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 375 deg.

1. In a large bowl, add melted butter, oil and sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined.

2. Add the yoghurt and vanilla... and mix until smooth and combined.

3. Add flour, baking soda and pinch of salt(you can place this in a flour sifter if you want...I didn't bother). Mix until dough comes together.

4. Add chocolate chip and nuts, if using. Combine.

5. Using a 1 1/2 TBS cookie scooper( or make balls by hand) place dough on parchment lined cookie sheets.

6. Press down cookie balls to about 1/2 inch thick( or a bit thinner).

7. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.

8. Let cool on cookie sheets for 3-5 minutes. Remove and cool completely on wire racks.