Bear Paws

My first official use of my new mixer was the Bear Paws recipe. It comes from foodandwhine on Tasty Kitchen. (And yes, I meant to type whine not wine. It's her username.)

1/2 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups rolled oats
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
1/2 cup chocolate chips

These are basically a healthier oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. And they're delicious. I also used more chocolate chips than the recipe called for...surprising after my last post about chocolate chips, right?

Cream butter and sugar together, then mix in applesauce. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and stir into butter mixture. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Combine flour, oats and flax and add to mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Pat them down and make 3 indents on one side of the cookie with a butter knife to form the claws of the paw. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

My skill level at making them actually look like bear paws: poor. Maybe I should have messed with the dough more to solidify it because when I used the knife it only seemed to push the dough apart. So mine didn't look like paws, but they were still yummy.

Let's be honest: oatmeal and the other ingredients are not visually appealing before being cooked. So let's take a peek at the brown sugar and butter in my new mixer:



We'll let that and the finished product picture guide us for this recipe. It'll make the recipe more appealing. I promise.