The Ultimate Celebration Cookie

First things first. I'm taking this opportunity to send out a huge, blog-worthy congratulations to our good friend James. He and Will served together in Germany for five years, and our families are very close friends. James and his wife Maureen are Alessandra's godparents, and I'm godmother to their little boy. Anyway, for the past year and some change, James has been in flight school in Alabama. Today, he found out he ranked #3 out of all the warrant officers, and he was able to choose whatever aircraft he wanted to fly. He chose the apache. So, a thousand congratulations to James on a well-deserved victory! Now, on to the treats.... (Maureen, take note. These cookies just scream "you done did good"). ;)

As I've mentioned before, I've become obsessed with coconut oil. I've been using it on my skin, for hair treatments for myself, getting the snarls out of Alessandra's hair, what have you. I didn't really use it for cooking, because as much as I love the smell of coconut, I don't like it when the taste is too overpowering. I've been hearing a lot of people talk up the deliciousness of coconut oil in cookies (you substitute it for butter), it's tastier, better for you, the cookies are chewier, etc. As it so happened the other night, Will was craving cookie dough-don't ask-and we were out of butter. I had a jar of coconut oil sitting around, so I thought, "what the heck. Let's give it a whirl."

Look at it. It's just...beautiful.

Oh. My. Goodness. I am a chocolate chip cookie coconut oil substitute convert. They were absolutely amazing, although I will say the dough itself was kind of meh. The cookies, though? They lasted a whole day. I don't think I'll ever go back to buttery cookie dough again. And just think about it...one of the main reasons people started using coconut oil in place of butter is because of the health benefits. So (stay with me, here), ergo, that means...

These chocolate chip cookies are healthy. 

You're welcome. 

Source: Pinterest

Ingredients:

1/2 cup virgin coconut oil, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract/powder (I like powder for the little specks it gives the cookies)
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (plus more if needed, see notes)
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Cream together softened coconut oil (should have consistency of softened butter), sugars, egg, and vanilla extract with your mixer until light and fluffy (5 minutes).

2. Add flour, corn starch, baking soda, and salt and mix in until just combined. If the dough seems to thin and oily, add 1-2 more tablespoons of flour.

3. Fold in chocolate chips by hand.

4. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then roll dough into 12 even balls and place on cookie sheet. 

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes. The center will look slightly undercooked. Remove from the oven, and cool on a baking sheet for 10 minutes.