Lower Fat Chewy Chocolate Crackle Cookies

This recipe comes from one of my favourite chef's blog - Dinner with Julie, by Julie Van Rosendaal. I love her sensible take of food, her creativity and that she is from my hometown.

These chewy chocolate crackle cookies are delicious and fairly simple to make - they have the consistency of a fluffy brownie and satisfy those chocolate cravings.

What You'll Need:

• Parchment paper
• Baking trays
• 1 1/3 cup white flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup of your favourite cocoa - I use super dark cocoa as it has less sugar
• 1/4 cup room temperature, unsalted butter
• 1 room temperature egg white
• 2 room temperature whole eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup icing sugar - for rolling your dough balls in

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven to 175F or 350C
• In a mix master, or a large bowl thouroughly combine all your dry ingredients
• Cut in your room temperature butter - you can do this with a pastry cutter, but I used my mix master to do this
• Once the dry mixture is crumbly looking add in your lightly beaten eggs and vanilla. What I like to do is crack my eggs into a separate container - ensuring you don't have a bad egg that could potentially ruin your whole lot! I then add the vanilla into the eggs and lightly combine
• Pour your eggs and vanilla into your dry, butter mixture and combine
• Using two spoons, portion off a section of dough and plop it into a bowl full of your powdered sugar
• Using another spoon, move the dough around until it is fully covered and formed into a ball shape
• Place the dough ball on your parchment paper-lined baking tray
• Spacing the balls at least 2 inches apart, I can usually fit 9 balls per medium-sized baking tray - these cookies expand
• Bake for 11-14 minutes, depending on your oven. You can tell they are done as the outside are no longer mushy but the centre still looks shiny and a little under cooked. This will ensure your cookies are not dry and taste like fluffy brownies rather than chocolate sand paper
• Grab a glass of milk. Enjoy the fruits of your labour.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5 (I always think crackle cookies look a little scabby)
Taste: 2
Ease: 1 (a little fiddly but not rocket science)

I specifically called these cookies 'lower fat' as they are not low fat. Just because they are low in butter and have no oil they have three types of sugar.
Three.
There are lots of crackle cookie recipes out there and lots of people on Pinterest pin these recipes as 'low fat' or even 'healthy' cookies.
Ladies, Martha wouldn't lie to you (unless you were the tax man) so don't lie to yourselves.
Embrace the sugar, the chocolate - eat in moderation and enjoy them as a treat.