Skinny Chocolate Chippers

I have a six-year-old who gets hyper when she eats sugar. And, at this time of year, it's especially hard to avoid sugar. After trick-or-treating last week, she came home with a full bucket of chocolates and lollipops, and she wanted them all at once.

I made a deal with her. If she gave my husband all of the candy, she could have a toy. It was an expensive deal for us, but it got the sugar out of our house, and got her to calm down a little easier post-Halloween.

I felt a bit heartless, though, and started looking for a tasty, low-sugar snack we could bake together. After a bit of searching and tinkering, I came up with this recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I started with a Mr. Food recipe, and kept working at it until I cut out a little more sugar.

Here's the end result:

These cookies aren't sugar-free, but they have half the sugar of our usual recipe. And, by using miniature chocolate chips, I was able to use fewer chips. As a bonus, they're also much lower in fat and much higher in fiber, so I haven't felt too guilty letting Amelia sneak an extra cookie here and there. In fact, I've been snacking on these, too, and it's almost time to make another batch.

Here's the recipe:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus two tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup Splenda with fiber (you can get it at Target)
1/2 cup low-fat margarine
1/2 cup all-natural applesauce
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
1/2 cup miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, beat the brown sugar, Splenda, margarine and applesauce until smooth. (It won't be one uniform color, but it shouldn't have any lumps). Beat in the egg substitute and vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour mixture until smooth. With a large spatula, stir in the oats and chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on a baking sheet that's been coated with non-stick spray. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

These are very soft at first, so you'll want to let them cook a bit before taking a bite, unless you prefer soft and gooey cookies.

I was a bit worried about baking with the Splenda with fiber, since I'd only ever used it in coffee before, but the cookies taste great and have a very nice texture. They're not crispy, but they're very good for dunking in milk. I'll probably go through some more of my recipes, and see what else I can substitute.