Food Storage Friday: Chocolate Oatmeal Cluster Cookies

Food Storage Friday is BACK! For those of you who are new to Safely Gathered In, on Friday's we like to share a recipe that can be made with only shelf stable items. For example, using powdered milk instead of regular milk and so on. We'll be spotlighting some of our favorites from the archives as well as sharing new recipes.



These Chocolate Oatmeal Cluster cookies are ones I've wanted to make for the blog for a while, but the summer off has put it on the back burner. The original recipe is here and I found it via this blog. Don't you love how many recipes I find from healthy living blogs? That's because food storage is healthy!


Ingredients: oats, cocoa powder, sugar, olive oil, vanilla, salt, ground flax seed and water.

Flax seed and water is an egg substitute which you can read about here: Egg Substitution: Flax Seed. I used whole flax seeds which I "milled" in my blender. Basically, I just turned the blender on until the flax seeds were all ground into flour (flax flour). Then I stored the ground flax seed in a container in my fridge until I needed it.


The first thing you want to do is make your "egg." Mix your ground flax seed with the water and let it sit while you mix up everything else. You want it to sit for 3-4 minutes so it can get a gel-like texture.




Then get to work mixing up the dry ingredients. Add sugar to the oats.


Then the cocoa powder (the more you add the more "dark" the cookies are).


A little salt


Stir it all together until combined.



Next up the wet ingredients: the olive oil that is speckled with cocoa powder because I used the same measuring cup. (I don't have a dishwasher in my new place, so I'm very conscious about how many dishes I use!)


Vanilla


And finally, the flax "egg."


Mix all your wet ingredients together until well combined.


Now add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients.



Mix, mix, mix.





Now cover, and store the dough in your fridge for several hours. This is why the pictures are so bad, I had to make the dough early in the morning (meaning, no natural light) so that they would be ready early enough in the day for lunches.



Oh look! Better pictures!

Drop the batter by teaspoons onto a cookie sheet (I use my little mini ice cream scooper thing, that you would never use for ice cream because it's so tiny).

And flatten them with a fork. This just makes more of a cookies shape, because they won't fall on their own.


Bake!


It reminds me of no-bake cookies, only you bake them! This makes a super dark chocolate cookie. They are a big hit with the dark chocolate lovers around here. A little too dark for my taste, but I am often out numbered when it comes to the grade of chocolate.


Chocolate Oatmeal Cluster Cookies
adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen

1 cup oats
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup olive oil
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp milled flax seed with 3 Tbsp water)

Combine the ground flax seed and 3 Tbsp water in a separate bowl. Mix and set aside. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine wet ingredients in a bowl. Mix all together. Cover and chill for several hours.

Scoop onto cookie sheet and flatten with a fork. Cook for 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes a dozen.



What about you? Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?