Healthy and Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies?!

I've been sick all week with a bad chest cold and yesterday I was finally starting to feel a bit better.  Enough that I was getting the urge to do some baking.  Naturally, I began reading some of my favourite foodie blogs - Joy the Baker had just published a recipe that immediately caught my eye - Buttered Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Walter loves cookies, chocolate, and popcorn ... so, this cookie was a perfect match.  I printed the recipe off and immediately had to put a halt to baking - only one egg left in the house and no one felt like going out at night.  :(  Oh, well.

This morning after breakfast we went out for a bike sale event and after getting a great deal on a consignment bike for Walter ($15), we picked up some eggs on the way home.  Time to bake.

Of course, I wasn't in the mood for popping corn - it wasn't even noon - so I decided to do some switching out.  Cookies aren't meant to really rise much so I swapped out most of the flour with whole wheat flour, and instead of popcorn I used some Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes.  The end result was incredible - the dark chocolate chips had the right sweetness and the two cereals gave the cookie just the right amount of crunch and chew.  Heaven.

Here are the ingredients (based on what I did):

Unsalted Butter, room temperature - 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar, not packed - 1/2 cup (I used my home made brown sugar)
White Sugar - 1/2 cup

Egg - 1 large
Vanilla - 1 teaspoon

Whole Wheat Flour - 1 cup
All-Purpose Flour - 1/4 cup
Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

Dark Chocolate Chips - 1/2 cup
Rice Krispies - 1 cup
Corn Flakes - 2 cups

Before doing any mixing turn on the oven to 350F (I used the convection setting on my oven so I set the oven to 325F).  Spray two cookie sheets with Pam and set aside.

Get a good sized bowl out and use it to mix the butter with the brown and white sugars until the mix is light and creamy.  Next, add the egg and vanilla, making sure everything is well blended.  Next up is the flours, baking soda, and salt.  At this point you have a basic cookie dough.

By adding the cereals and chocolate chips you take it up a notch.

At this point it was good enough to eat without baking!  Not that I would do that ...

Spoon tablespoons of cookie dough onto the prepared cookie sheets and bake for 10-13 minutes (it only took 9 minutes in the convection oven).  Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

There were originally three cookies on this plate ...

... they were too good to remain untouched.

I call this a healthy and delicious chocolate chip cookie because of the whole wheat flour and the cereals.