I'm a freaking cookie genius: Sugar-free pot-infused peanut butter chocolate bombs

I'm a goddamned cookie genius. Seriously. I tweaked this recipe from food.com with the addition of cannabis and chocolate. How could this possibly go wrong?
I subbed pot-infused olive oil (thank you, BC Compassion Club) for the vegetable oil in the recipe and added 200 grams of chocolate. Yes, half a pound IS a lot, that's the point. The peanut-y dough is basically just a delivery system for chocolate, just as it should be. At 200 grams, this is the closest I've come to the perfect peanut/chocolate ratio found in a Reese's cup. Heaven. Totally worth getting fat over. And any herb taste in the oil is totally undetectable in the cookie. WIN.
One word: these are sugar free, made with Splenda/granular sugar substitute, and to be honest, you really DO need sugar for a chewy cookie. The texture of these is a little sandy, but they are freaking DELICIOUS.
Yields 24 cookies.

Ingredients
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup Splenda granular
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup creamy natural-style peanut butter
1/8 cup pot-infused olive oil
AND
1/8 cup vegetable or olive oil (plain)
1 egg
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup/200 grams chocolate chips

Whether you make this with cannabis-infused oil, or straight vegetable/olive oil, the total amount of oil used should be 1/4 cup. Got it? Good.

Directions:
Set oven to 375 degrees.
Put parchment paper down on a cookie sheet.
In a bowl combine flour, Splenda and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, blend together peanut butter, oil, egg, water and vanilla; mix well to combine.
Mix wet with dry ingredients. I had to get in with my bare hands and squidge the wet and dry ingredients together....what?
Add the chocolate chips to the dough. Don't worry if it looks like the dough is barely holding the chocolate chips together.
Shape into 1-inch balls and place on the cookie sheet.
Gently flatten each cookie slightly with a fork.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned (I went 14 minutes)
Let cool on wire racks. You will be tempted to eat them all. Resist it.

Let me eat cake: sugar-free pot brownies

I had a tightly wrapped 1/2 cup of the BC Compassion Club's sativa butter in the fridge and a jones for a sugar-free dessert that wasn't fruit-based [Fruit crisp, I love you, but sometimes a woman needs some alone time with her chocolate. You understand, right?]
I tweaked this recipe which was originally from a Splenda recipe booklet. The single review mentioned the resulting brownie's "flatness", but I figured an extra scoop of baking powder would help. That, and doubling the recipe. And using pot butter.

When baking with cannabis butter ["cannabutter"], it's a good idea to go half cannabis butter, and half regular butter. Partly because it's potent and that's all you need, and partly because pot-infused butter tastes like, well, pot-infused butter. It can be overpowering if used straight [why I usually use the cannabutter in a garlicky bruschetta; to hide the taste, and because I love garlic. Pervertedly].

These turned out great; when cooled, it was a moist, dense sugar-free cake - and the applesauce and walnuts make it practically good for you. The cocoa masked virtually all taste of the cannabutter. I was so focused on getting to the end product ["whee, pot brownies!"] it wasn't until I had the more-cakey-than-chewy brownie moist chocolate cake with walnuts cooling on a wire rack that I realized I had made my first cake from scratch! Go me!
Best of all, I still had 1/4 cup of unused cannabutter in the fridge for the next attempt; I'm thinking of using darker cocoa, omitting the walnuts, and spooning preserved cherries over the cake. Oh my.

I tweaked the recipe from Food.com and doubled their version. My doubled, tweaked, pot-infused version [which can be halved and/or made with plain butter only, if that's the way you roll] is below:

Ingredients:

• 1 ^1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
  
• 1 ^1/2 cup Splenda granular, sugar substitute
  
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped
  
• 1/4 cup plain unsalted butter, softened
  AND
  
• 1/4 cup cannabis butter, softened
  
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  
• 4 tablespoons mini chocolate chips
  

Tip: butter will soften quickly if cut into small cubes [pictured]. If you want to make this without cannabutter, make sure the total amount of regular butter you use is 1/2 c. for the doubled recipe shown here, or 1/4 c. if halving the recipe.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 8" x 8" baking dish with butter
  
• Combine flour, cocoa, Splenda and baking powder in a large bowl
  
• Stir in walnuts
  
• In another bowl, combine butter(s), applesauce, eggs and vanilla extract mixing well with a wire whisk [I went to town with my newly-acquired $20 electric mixer...the power! No more sore wrists! Mwahahahaha!]
  
• Add wet mixture to dry mixture and mix gently to combine.
  
• Fold in chocolate chips.
  
• Spread batter in dish and bake for 35 minutes.
  
• Cool on wire racks.
  
• Nom with a cold glass of milk. Enjoy smallish portions until you know where you're at; overdoing it on cannabis edibles can be uncomfortable. Just FYI.
  

banned candy

Happy Bats is using their powers for good, again; this time they're running a cool Buffy contest/giveaway until the end of the month. Friends of the batfolk have diabetes, and since there won't be any Buffy musical this year [and the last few Buffy singalongs have been for charity], the two great tastes that taste great together [charity, and Buffy] have come together to kick diabetes in the slats.

Even if they hadn't dangled a chance to win Buff stuff in front of me, I would still be first in line to donate; I found out this spring I have type II diabetes. Going sugar-free isn't too bad, except for when I really, really want a Caesar, which it turns out are just loaded with sugar. Thank god for sugar-free sweets: I've found a reliable source of sugar-free 70% chocolate and maple walnut ice cream at, respectively, Denny's Farm Market and 6th Ave Deli, both in New Westminster.

Anyway. Life with diabetes isn't all sugar-free sweets. There's also the fun of making sure your feet don't turn black. I'm just glad I can take a once-daily pill at this point to control it, and don't have to monitor my bloodsugar beyond occasional bloodwork, and best of all, no needles.

So go give. You have until October 31st, and even a few bucks gets you a chance at a cool prize, good karma, and, again, the chance to kick diabetes in the slats.

Go here for news of Buffy screenings and the link to donate to the Canadian Diabetes Association, and hints of the bound-to-be cool prize from Happy Bats:

http://flickerbat.typepad.com/being_there/buffy-musical-tickets.html