Healthy Dessert Series : Quest Bar Cookies

 So you made it to the gym today. (Go you!) You're feeling great about yourself, are exhausted yet satisfied from your workout,  and you promise yourself you are going to eat healthy all week since you just put in all of that hard work. Then you get back home and realize that you are STARVING. Like I-need-food-right-now, put-food-in-my-body-or-I-will-pass-out-momentarily kind of starving. You start to ransack your kitchen cupboards and what do you find? Oh yeah, those cookies that you were supposed to bring to the potluck dinner last weekend. Woops. And what do you do? You promptly lose any and all self-control or willpower and you scarf three cookies down before you can even realize what you're doing.

Under normal circumstances I would scold you and give you a lecture about how abs are made in the kitchen.

But today, Ill allow it. Heck, I'll even encourage it.

Why is this? Because today we are talking about healthy Quest Bar cookies!

 For those of you who have been living in a hole, Quest Bars are delicious and nutritious protein bars and I highly recommend you climb out of your hole and get yourself to your nearest GNC to experience one for yourself. What makes these protein bars better than the other 3,567 protein bars on the market, you ask?

·        Low carb - Because Quest Bars are made with Isomalto-Oligosaccharides (essentially, insoluble fiber), the net carbs of the bars are usually between 3-5g. Compare this with 30g of carbs in a Protein Builder’s CLIF Bar.

·        Low sugar – Most Quest Bars only have 1 or 2 grams of sugar. Compare this with the 20 (Yes, 20!) grams of sugar in the CLIF protein bar!

Not only are they great on their own and come in a ton of flavors, but I recently discovered that they can also be made into crunchy cookies.

I forgot to tell you the second greatest thing about quest bar cookies (behind their nutritional value, of course)…

They take under 4 minutes to make!

 So for all my readers that can get a little hangry … these are for you. You’re welcome.

Here we go!

 Step 1: Pick your flavor Quest Bar- I used Cookies and Cream for these cookies but they have about 18 flavors such as S'more bar, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Apple Pie, and Chocolate Brownie.

  NEWS FLASH: As I was looking up how many flavors they had online, I just discovered that they came out with a new flavor: Mint Chocolate Chunk. Aka - sure to be my new favorite flavor. 

Step 2: Cut your quest bar into pieces. I usually do 3 or 4 pieces but technically you could do as many as you want- or you could make just one giant cookie. (Adjust cooking time accordingly)

Step 3: Place your Quest bar pieces on a cooking sheet lined with parchment paper and squish them down a bit to flatten them.

Step 4: Cook the "cookies" at 350 degrees for 3-4 minutes. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING - these puppies can burn super easily. I have had to scrape the black char off the bottom of the cookie one too many times due to my tendency to get distracted while cooking. Watch them carefully! In fact, I would suggest that you literally do not take your eyes off of them.

Step 5: You will have a strong desire to consume these the moment you get them out of the oven. Don’t do it. Please let your cookies cool before enjoy them. That is, unless you don’t mind not being able to taste for the rest of the week.

To recap (because I know these instructions were EXTREMELY complex and confusing):

Buy bar. Cut bar. Cook pieces at 350 degrees for 3-4 minutes. Let cool. Enjoy.

P.S.- Just wanted to give my Mom a quick shout-out for being the best in the whole world. Thanks to her generosity in letting me borrow her camera I was able to include photos in today’s post! Thanks Mom! Also, it was her birthday this week so if you know her (or if you don’t) be sure to wish her a Happy 35^th Birthday! ;) 

Hope you like these cookies and that this recipe helps to prevent you from binge-eating real cookies in the future! I’d love to hear how you like them - comment below! :)