Healthier S’mores Cookies (nut free, grain free)

Final Post: End of Summer Series

We’re about a week a half away from true fall and deep in the midst of what I’m calling “Baking Shoulder Season”. The stretch of time when it feels like summer is definitely over, but it’s not yet technically fall. Moving away from frozen, raw, or no-bake treats and heading back towards a warm oven. Saying goodbye to the bounty of juicy summer fruit and greeting the crispy likes of apples and pears. Similarly, we’re packing up the shorts and flips flops and pulling out the thick socks and sweaters. And so, as we move out of this transitional time, I bring you to the end of my End of Summer Series with these Healthier S’mores Cookies. A soft and gooey cookie that perfectly encapsulates this seasonal shift. It’s cool enough to turn on the oven without potentially breaking a sweat, but longer days still remind us it’s the end of summer. This cookie is warm and cozy, but reminiscent of those fun and whimsical flavors of summer.These cookies unify two of my favorite things in life, s’mores and cookies. And probably my favorite s’mores-ification (yes, that’s a technical term) to date. They are soft and chewy, packed with glorious puddles of melty dark chocolate chunks and pockets of lightly toasted marshmallows. These cookies are a true vision of the term “ooey gooey”. It’s the kind of dessert mash-up that really makes you think it might just be better than the originals. But I’ll leave that decision up to you.
And before we get to the recipe, let’s quickly chat about chocolate choices. Ideally, you should use a dark chocolate bar chopped into chunks. I tried this recipe using Beyond Good’s Pure Dark Chocolate, which is 80% cacao, and it felt a little too dark for this cookie. There is not a crazy amount of sugar in the actual cookie dough and although it was still delicious with the super dark chocolate, I much preferred the batches made using Hu’s Simple Dark Chocolate (70% cacao) chopped into large chunks. But, use any chocolate that sounds good to you! To really give these cookies that melty goodness I pressed a few extra chunks of chocolate into the top of each cookie dough ball. And while you can certainly use chocolate chips for this recipe, it will result with less gooey cookies. Chocolate chips tend to hold their shape more during the baking process. For the marshmallows, I only pressed them into the top of each ball to limit the amount of refined sugar used in the recipe. However, if you want to go big on the chocolate + marshmallow situation, stir in an extra 1/4 cup of marshmallows into the batter as well as pressing a few into the tops of the dough. And of course, a sprinkling of flakey sea salt is always a good idea.These cookies are made “healthier” with a lower sugar content than you’re typical cookie recipe. The cookie dough is sweetened with better-for-you coconut sugar. These are made with no refined flours or oils, and a minimal amount of refined sugar (from the marshmallows only).  They are gluten/grain/dairy free and nut free as well! That’s being said, these are so yummy I have a feeling even the most suspicious of taster would not guess they are secretly healthier. They are just that good and, baker be warned, more than a little addicting. And just the perfect way to send off summer with a delicious cookie flourish.

gluten free, grain free, dairy free, nut free

If you make this recipe, please feel free to leave a review or rating down below. And I’d LOVE to see your creation! Please tag me on Instagram @freshlydafna and use #freshlydafna.

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