Dried Plum Cookies Recipe | Dried Plum Recipes

Dried Plum Cookies Recipe | Chocolate Chip Prune Cookies

The Dried Plum Cookies Recipe is an amazing twist to the classic chocolate chip cookies. The addition of homemade prune puree along with whole wheat flour and jaggery powder makes these perfectly healthy and soft cookies. You definitely don’t want to miss this recipe!

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If you have been following my blog, then I’m sure that my love for chocolate chip cookies has been no secret. I started with one recipe of the basic chocolate chip cookies, and I have not looked back ever since.

Most of the recipes created later have been more or less using that same recipe as the base to build more and more. Linking the recipe of Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies for your reference.

Recipes with dried plums – The Background

So, how did this dried plum cookies recipe come in to my mind? Well, there are quite a few reasons behind that.

• First and foremost, the benefits of prunes are well known. Simply put, dried plums or prunes are a powerhouse of Vitamin A, Potassium, antioxidants, and these also aid in digestion, among many other numerous benefits. You can find more detailed health benefits of prunes in this article by Healthline. Needless to say, because of the inclusion of prunes puree, this is one of the most healthy cookie recipes for toddlers.
• I keep asking my 5 year old daughter for new recipes. I feel the kids have a sense of imagination, which is unbeatable. They think out of the box, and that too, without any judgement of failure. This particular one was not suggested by her, but there are many that she keeps suggesting, which I will never think of, otherwise. For an example, smoothie cookies, avocado cake and also, peach cookies. LOL!
• Costco Prunes packet is pretty big, and needed some innovation, apart from eating it just like that.
• If I am able to combine anything with chocolate chip cookies, I do that. Period!

Prune Cookie Main Ingredients

• Whole Wheat Flour
• Jaggery Powder
• Homemade Prune Puree
• Butter

The base recipe uses whole wheat flour, and is sweetened with jaggery powder. So, here is the catch. With the addition of homemade prune puree, the butter and jaggery powder in the recipe is reduced as well. This is one important point to take care of, when you are experimenting with fruit purees while baking. Fruit purees act as a great substitute to reduce fat in the baking recipes, and sweetener as well.

The butter has been reduced to a little more than half here, and jaggery powder has been reduced by less than half. So, a win win situation for all. I was skeptical about the texture of the cookies (Trust me I’ve had some really bad experiments sometimes), but to my surprise, the cookies were incredibly soft. The fruit puree did its wonders, these healthy prune cookies are definitely the best prune desserts.

How to make Prune Puree for baking?

If you want to know how I made the dried plum puree at home, it is a simple process. I did take around 10 pieces of dried plums (prunes), put them in a blender along with 1/4 cup of water. Blend, blend, blend, and TaDa, the dried plums puree was ready to be used. To be exact, I got 1/2 cup of dried plum puree. The blender I use is Ninja Personal Blender, it is my personal favorite, especially for everyday smoothies!

Note: The prunes I have used are the Kirkland Signature Sunsweet Dried Plums (Pitted Prunes). I have bought that packet from Costco, but you can find it on Amazon too, in case you are not able to find in Costco.

How to make Prune Chocolate Chip Cookies – Healthy Dried Plum Recipes

Making Prune Chocolate Chip Cookies is a simple process, as explained here. Also note that I don’t use any electric mixer to prepare the cookie dough (except for the puree part where I used blender), but I prefer to make the dough by hand. Always remember to not over-mix the dough at any step, you just have to blend everything together with hands evenly. Here is the step-by-step process.

• Mix the butter and jaggery powder till the jaggery powder is completely blended with the butter. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and dried plum puree to the above mixture and stir till all the ingredients are uniformly mixed.
• Mix in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the wet mixture. Finally add the chocolate chips and give it a good mix with hand. Put the dough in the fridge for at least 10-20 minutes.
• Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
• Take around 1-2 tbsp of dough in your hands, form a ball, and flatten a little. Bake the cookies for around 10 minutes in the preheated oven and serve hot or store after the cookies cool down.

Substitutions & Tips for Chocolate Prune Cookies

• Whole Wheat Flour – Feel free to replace whole wheat flour with the same quantity of all purpose flour. If the cookie dough feels a little loose, add ~ 1/4th cup more of all-purpose flour.
• Jaggery Powder – If Jaggery Powder is not available, you can replace it with equal amount of unrefined cane sugar or organic coconut sugar.
• Egg – To make the recipe eggless, I would advise to replace the egg with either of these two options:
  • Chia Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Chia seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
  • Flax Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Flax seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)

NOTE – For eggless version, powdered seeds are preferred. But if not available, you can use whole seeds for soaking!

Also, continuing the tradition, here comes the 43rd recipe under My Julie & Julia Project. For those who don’t know, I had started this project last year, under which I had planned to post 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2019. But since I got busy with other priorities in life, I have planned to continue the tradition in 2020. So, this is the Recipe #43 for you all.

If you like this recipe, do check out these Soft Banana Cookies recipe as well. Let’s get going to the Chocolate Chip Prune Cookies Recipe now. Happy baking everyone!!

Step-by-step Instructions

• In a blender, add 10 pieces of dried plums (prunes) and 1/4 cup of water. Blend till you form a paste. It might not be extremely smooth, but the tiny pieces of dried plums enhance the cookie texture, so it’s a win-win situation in any case. Set aside the puree for later use.

• Mix the butter and jaggery powder till it is completely blended with the butter. I prefer to mix by hand since I don’t use mixer. Whisk or spatula is not helpful in this case, since the butter is not in a completely melted state.

• Add in the egg and vanilla extract to the above and mix everything together.
• Add prunes puree to the mixture and stir till all the ingredients are uniformly mixed. The wet ingredients mixture is now ready.

• For the dry ingredients, mix in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the wet mixture.

• Finally add the chocolate chips, and give it a good mix with hand. It is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for at least 10-20 minutes.

• Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
• Take around 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoon of dough in your hands, form a ball, and flatten a little. I was able to make 19 cookies with the prepared dough.

• Bake the cookies for around 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, or till you see creases on top of the cookies. The cookies will be soft to touch, but once cooled, they will be fine.
• Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes.

The Dried Plums (Prunes) Chocolate Chip Cookies are now ready to be served. Also, these can be stored in an air-tight container.

Healthy recipes using Dried Plums | Prune Cookies Recipe