20SB Cooking Challenge: Plastic-Free Dessert

If you read as many blogs as I do, you must have been exposed to "Plastic-Free July" by now. The idea is that you live for a month without using disposable plastic. No grocery bags. No plastic straws.  NO ICED COFFEE CUPS.
No thanks, not for me! I really commend Lauren at Lauren of All Trades for hosting a freakin' cookout without store-bought burger buns, disposable cups/utensils, plastic bottles of soda/salad dressings/condiments...I have an idea that she took advantage of her position as host of the latest 20sb Cooking Challenge to maybe find a few sweet ideas for the next 2 weeks!

The Challenge: Make a dessert using no disposable/single-use plastic items.

My first struggle was figuring out which recipe to make. My no-bake desserts are all fruit/berry based, which is out because I don't know of a good local farmer's market and it's almost impossible to find berries in non-plastic packaging. I've been trying to avoid the oven this summer but that seemed like the only way to go. I've made a few cakes lately and didn't want to cop out and make a pie with canned filling, so I landed on cookies. After a quick glance in my pantry to see what I had, I decided to go with my Chocolate Cookies.
Having most of the ingredients already at home was definitely an advantage, because I lost my only reusable grocery bag and was not in the mood to haul a 5-lb bag of flour in my arms.

Since my recipe uses brown sugar, and I didn't want to buy any more because I have like half a bag in my cabinet, I decided to make my own. Brown sugar is just white granulated sugar mixed with molasses and as I happen to have a (glass) jar of molasses on hand so all I needed was to do a quick google for the ratio. One cup of white sugar takes 1 Tablespoon of molasses for medium brown sugar.

I was all set to proceed when I realized my cocoa powder has a plastic lid. I wasn't sure if this would count against me, so I went back to the computer to see if I could find a plastic-free alternative. As it turns out, grated chocolate works just as well as cocoa powder. You just have to lower the amount of fat used to compensate for those in the chocolate. I used ~1 oz of grated chocolate for the 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder in the original recipe and reduced the butter by 1 Tablespoon. It was suggested to lower the amount of sugar used but I didn't want to do any more math to figure out how much molasses to use. I strategically bought dark chocolate, which is inherently a little bit bitter, and left the sugar measurement as is.

The only other swap I made was to use real butter, which comes in a cardboard box wrapped in wax paper, rather than the margarine called for in the original recipe since the margarine I use comes in a big plastic tub. I've seen it in sticks but, like with the brown sugar, I didn't want to buy any more when I had so much at home already. I actually meant to buy more butter because I have less than one stick left now after baking, but I don't use a whole lot of real butter; we'll manage to survive a week without.

One "problem" I had was with the eggs. We don't eat many eggs so I typically get them in 6s or 8s, but the store didn't have any that size in the paper cartons and had to go with a full doz. J's going to think he's a real lucky guy when I make him bacon & eggs for breakfast this week!

At the end, the only plastic involved was the lid to my glass bottle of vanilla extract, but luckily vanilla extract was the only exception to the no-plastic rule!

Dark Chocolate Cookies, Here we go!

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 Tbsp molasses
3 Tbsp butter, softened (which took like 15 minutes because there's no a/c in my kitchen)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg white
1/2 cup flour
1 oz dark chocolate, grated
1/2 tsp baking soda
more chopped chocolate, if desired

1. Preheat oven to 375*F. Combine white sugar and molasses. Mix with a fork until thoroughly combined. The texture and smell were so much better than the brown sugar you buy at the store. I'm seriously considering getting larger bags of granulated sugar and adding my own molasses as needed from now on.

Would have been like two pulses in the food processor but I didn't want to wash it.

2. Beat brown sugar with butter. Beat in vanilla and egg white. Pretty standard cookie shit.
3. Sift in flour and baking soda. Grate chocolate and stir in. It's easier to grate the chocolate if you stick it in the freezer for a while first.

Definitely the best use of a microplane grater!

4. Drop by rounded Tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheet, about 2" apart. It'll make 8-12, depending on how rounded you make your Tablespoons. I had just enough chocolate left to top each cookie with half of a dark chocolate square. Consider it a megachip.

Could have probably made "chips" with the food processor... But again, I didn't want to wash it.

5. Bake until set, a little less than 10 minutes. Cool 5 minutes on sheet before removing to wire rack

Holy. Crap. I've made this recipe before and I might never use the original again. The flavor of these "plastic-free" ones was incredible. I don't know if it was the use of real butter over margarine, making my own brown sugar, or having grated chocolate instead of cocoa powder, but wow. I couldn't believe the first bite. This was already one of my favorite cookie recipes because it only makes one tray (nothing bugs me more than finding a cookie recipe then seeing it makes like 7 dozen.. what home cook needs that many freakin' cookies, seriously?), but the swaps to make it plastic-free really but it over the top. Definitely worth turning the oven on in 90-degree weather again!

 Go me! This one was a winner