Taste Test Tuesday: Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Soft Cookies

My first thought after tasting the new Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Soft Cookies (individually wrapped) was, "I like my chocolate chip cookies with a bit more chocolate than cookie." They are indeed "soft" cookies. Each cookie is worth 1 Weight Watcher point mainly because they have pumped up the fiber (which lowers the points in the Weight Watchers point system).

Without the fiber fortification, each cookie would be worth 2 points.

Is the fiber coming from the use of whole wheat flour? Well...no, the first ingredient is enriched wheat flour. The second ingredient is invert sugar, the third is chocolate chips, and the fourth is sugar. Just in case you wondered...there are 8 grams of sugar per cookie, which computes to 36% calories from sugar.

A little further down the ingredient list you'll come to inulin, which they describe as a "natural extract of chicory roots". Bingo! What do we know about inulin? It's considered to be a "low-digestible carbohydrate" which means it is incompletely or not absorbed in the small intestine but is partly fermented by bacteria in the large intestine. Manufacturers often use inulin, also considered to be a prebiotic, as a fat replacement.

How does it taste?
These cookies taste pretty good and they seemed to appeal somewhat to the other people that sampled them. I prefer homemade cookies from the oven made with part whole wheat flour, but admittedly that takes a bit more culinary cunning than opening up a box of these cookies.

Each cookie contains:
90 calories, 2.5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 18 g carbohydrate, 8 g sugar, 5 mg cholesterol, and 4 g fiber.

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• Healthy Cooking with Elaine Magee, RD
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Making Over Martha: Oatmeal Berry Bars

Photo: Elaine Magee

They are called Oatmeal Bars on Martha Stewart's website and they call for white flour, 2 1/2 cubes of butter, heavy whipping cream, 48 caramels, and a cup of semisweet chocolate chips. We made them more whole grain, decreased the brown sugar by 25%, substituted a light plant sterol margarine in place of butter and used low sugar berry preserves instead of chocolate chips, heavy cream and caramels. Granted the berry bars aren't going to give you the chocolate fix the other version will...but you are better off getting your daily dose of chocolate with a couple bites of dark chocolate anyway...and this version can double as a breakfast bar!

Oatmeal Berry Bars

Use the margarine cold from the refrigerator, it will crumble more easily. Each bar contributes 1.4 grams of plant sterols as well.

Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup light margarine with plant sterols (i.e. Smart Balance Heart Right Light with 5 grams fat and 1.7 grams plant sterols per tablespoon)
1 1/2 cups low sugar berry preserves (i.e. Smucker's Low Sugar Strawberry Preserves)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Coat a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with canola cooking spray.
2. In large mixing bowl, combine oats, whole wheat and white flours, brown sugar, baking soda and salt by beating on low speed. Add the margarine to the oat mixture, cold from the refrigerator, breaking it up into small pieces with your fingers or two knives or forks. Run mixer on low speed just until a crumbly mixture forms.
3. Press half of the oat mixture onto bottom of prepared baking dish. Bake until just set (about 15 minutes). Spread berry preserves evenly over warm bottom crust. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture evenly over the top, breaking it up into smaller pieces with fingers if necessary. Bake 15 minutes more. Let cool in pan before cutting into 24 squares.

Yield: Makes 24 bars

Nutrition information per serving: 170 calories, 4 g protein, 28 g carbohydrate, 5 g fat, 1.4 g saturated fat, 1.6 g monounsaturated fat, 1.7 g polyunsaturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 3 g fiber, 180 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 25 percent. Omega-3 fatty acids = .22 g, Omega-6 fatty acids = 1.5 g

Original bars contain 335 calories, 16 g fat, 9 g saturated fat, 33 mg cholesterol, 46 grams carbohydrate, and 2 grams fiber per bar if the recipe makes 24 bars.

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Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

The original recipe for these cookies is a top rated recipe on the Food Network website and it was contributed by Wendy Gaynor, the owner of the Ruby et Violette cookie bakery in New York City. The original recipe calls for a stick of butter; I switched to a less fat margarine with a low amount of saturated fat and no trans fat. I decreased the sugar by 1/3 and used a majority of whole-wheat flour to make the dough, which adds nutrients and fiber. The original cookie recipe calls for 3 types of chips (peanut butter chips, toffee chips and semisweet chocolate chips). I kept the two types of chocolate and took out the toffee chips.

WHAT YOU SAVE
Making these changes cut from each cookie:

• 63 calories
• 5 grams total fat
• 4 grams saturated fat
• 17 mg cholesterol

And fiber increases by about 1 gram per serving!

Lightened NYC Bakery Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Photo: Elaine Magee

Ingredients:

1/2 cup less fat margarine (8 grams fat per tablespoon and no trans fat)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar packed
1 large egg, higher omega-3 if available
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup peanut butter or butterscotch chips
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (60% cocoa if possible)

Preparation:

1. In large mixing bowl, combine margarine with dark brown sugar until thoroughly blended, scarping sides and bottom of bowl frequently. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat on low speed, scraping sides and bottom of bowl, until blended.
2. In separate bowl, combine flours, salt and baking soda. Add flour mixture to margarine/sugar mixture while beating on low speed until combined. Stir in both types of chocolate chips and marshmallows with a scraper or spoon. Cover bowl and refrigerate until cold (at least two hours).
3. Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and use a cookie scoop to drop balls of dough (about 2 tablespoons each), 2 inches apart, on prepared baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes (bake longer if you like your cookies crisp and not chewy). Let them rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes then remove cookies to a wire rack and let them cool.

Yield: Makes 18 bakery size cookies

Nutrition Information
Per serving: 168 calories, 2 g protein, 23 g carbohydrate, 7.5 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 11 mg cholesterol, 1.2 g fiber, 112 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 40 percent.

Journal as: 1 portion medium dessert

The Series:

• Comfort Food Makeovers
• The Mashed Potato Makeover
• Macaroni and Cheese, Please!
• The Fried Chicken Makeover
• Top-Rated Gourmet Meatloaf
• Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

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• 100-Calorie Chocolate Treats
• Healthy Cooking with Elaine Magee, RD
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Taste Test Tuesday: South Beach Living Fiber Fit Cookie Packs!

Got a sweet tooth craving but want to keep your extra calories and grams of sugar to a minimum and your grams of fiber to a maximum? Well, there are two new cookies on the supermarket shelf that might just come in handy. Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk and Double Chocolate Chunk are manufactured under the "South Beach Living - Fiber Fit" product line and I've got to say, they had me at the 5 grams of fiber and the 5 grams of sugar. They do taste pretty good (I prefer the Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk) and the 6 mini cookies per pack seem to quell most sweet cravings.

They are made with mostly semisweet chocolate, whole grain wheat flour, high oleic canola oil and oat fiber with sweetener coming from several different directions - sugar, maltitol (a sugar alcohol), sucralose (Splenda) and acesulfame potassium.

The 5.1-ounce box contains 6 individual packs and they are often on sale for about $2.50 or less, so keep your eye out for the sales.

South Beach Living Fiber Fit Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1 package: 100 calories, 5 g fat, 1.5 g saturated fat, 1 g protein, 5 g fiber, 5 g sugar (2 g sugar alcohol)

South Beach Living Fiber Fit Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1 package: 100 calories, 5 g fat, 1.5 g saturated fat, 1 g protein, 5 g fiber, 5 g sugar (2 g sugar alcohol)

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Frugal Food Gift #4: Chocolate Dipped Cookies

An Easy, Decadent Treat That Everyone Will Enjoy

Admittedly there is nothing healthy about this food gift. Well, you could use high cocoa chocolate chips to pump up the antioxidant value of the melted chocolate...but that's about it. I can tell you though that these chocolate dipped peppermint sandwich cookies are loaded with flavor and if you take your time eating and enjoying it, just one cookie is usually very satisfying. This is a great way to use up some of the leftover holiday sprinkles you have hanging around in the back of your spice cabinet. You could recycle holiday bowls, plates, and small gift boxes or place the cookies in holiday gift bags you have lying around.

Each box of cookies cost about $2.50 each ($5.00 total) plus you can pick up a bag of chocolate chips for about $2.00 for a total of $7.00. Since the batch makes about 6 food gifts, each gift will cost about $1.16.

Chocolate Covered Candy Cane Peppermint Sandwich Cookies

Ingredients:

• 11.5-ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips (milk can be substituted)
• 2 boxes of peppermint sandwich cookies, about 66 cookies total (I buy mine at Trader Joe's - they look like Oreos but the vanilla filling has crushed candy cane in it--but if you can't find them, just use Reduced Fat or regular Oreos)
• Holiday sprinkles, or if you are using regular chocolate sandwich cookies, crushed candy cane works well

Preparation:

1. Pour chocolate chips into a 2-cup glass measure (or similar) and microwave on LOW for about 1 minute. Stir gently and if not melted, microwave in 30-second intervals until almost completely melted. Stir with spoon to distribute the heat evenly and finish melting the chips.
2. Line two jellyroll pans with wax paper. Dunk one of the cookies halfway into the melted chocolate and scrape away some of the excess chocolate with the flat side of a dinner knife or use the edge of the glass measure. Lay dipped cookie on the wax paper.
3. Repeat with remaining cookies until all the melted chocolate has been used (about 33 cookies per cup of chocolate cups). Sprinkle holiday cookie decorations/sprinkles or crushed candy canes over the chocolate of each of the cookies. Place jellyroll pans in the refrigerator to harden the melted chocolate.
4. Place cookies in holiday gift bowls, bags or boxes or on cookie plates. If you use about 11 decorated cookies for each gift, this recipe will make about 6 gifts!

Yield: makes about 66 halfway dipped cookies

Nutrition Information: 77 calories, .6 g protein, 11 g carbohydrate, 3.8 g fat, 1.4 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, .6 g fiber, 60 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 44 percent.

Frugal Food Gifts...The Series

Holiday Food Gifts That Make Cents
#1: Light Cran-Raspberry Sauce
#2: Tea Time
#3: 5-Minute Peanut Butter Rocky Road Fudge
#4: Chocolate Dipped Cookies

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