I’m always experimenting with real food as running fuel and various cookies are frequently in the rotation. However, I find it’s hard to find the right balance between durability, moistness, digestibility, and appeal, particularly because I have some food sensitivities (gluten, egg yolk, dairy…) I’ve been playing around with Cowboy Cookie variations for a while, which I took on a recent big adventure – running the Yosemite High Route (click here for the trip report). They hit the spot during the day, in the middle of the night, and pretty much every time they touched my lips. They are not too sweet (which helps prevent palate fatigue on really long days), full of chunky ingredients that make them seem more like real food than another crappy bar or gel, and do not crumble in your pack. I also found them relatively easy to eat while moving (not too much chewing required). I wished that I had brought more. My 4-year old son also loves them as “summit cookies.” The recipe below is adapted from Matt Frazier’s recipe for Calorie Bomb Cookies from the The No Meat Athlete Cookbook, which was originally shared with me by Robert Schwartz in his DPMR Member Highlight. The following recipe is gluten free and can be made vegan by skipping the egg whites.
Cowboy Cookie Ingredients:
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 cup brown sugar (can use coconut sugar, raw sugar, or sucanat, but those will reduce the cookie sweetness)
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil (I like using MCT coconut oil when it’s running fuel)
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegan milk (higher-protein options are best for cookies, like Ripple)
- 2 Tablespoons ground flax seed (aka flax seed meal)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (increase to 1 tsp and/or use BASE salt or Boulder Salt for additional electrolytes)
- 4 Tablespoons egg whites (or 4 Tbls vegan milk for vegan option)
- 1.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 1.5 cups almond flour
- 1 cup gluten free flour like oat, teff, or brown rice (or a blend, I like the America’s Test Kitchen Whole-Grain Gluten-Free Flour Blend in this recipe)
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup raw walnut pieces
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Combine the first 9 ingredients in a food processor or blender and mix until combined and smooth. Add to the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips, nuts and coconut.
Divide into about 1/4 cup per cookie, on a greased (or lined) baking sheet. To make a cleaner-looking cookie, wet hands to prevent the dough from sticking and then roll dough into ball and press flat (until 3/4-inch thick or so). Bake at 325 degrees in convection oven or 350 degrees in regular oven for 20 – 30 minutes. Longer bake times will make the cookies more dry and durable.
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