I took a little time off from baking. After baking so many cookies and cakes, my pants were no longer fitting so great. While I lead an active life, I don’t burn nearly enough calories to eat so much sugar so often but I miss those sweat cakes and cookies!
With this in mind, I decided to look for healthier alternatives. This will take a couple of columns to really explore but basically I’m looking at oatmeal to replace white flour, Greek yogurt to replace oil or butter, honey to replace sugar and, of course, applesauce to replace eggs and also add moisture.
My first attempt was an oatmeal cookie combining all of those ingredients but the result was not so appetizing. Basically, it turned into cooked balls of oatmeal. They looked terrible and didn’t taste much better. I’d rather eat plain oatmeal as a cereal than as this cookie, so, in the trash went that batch.
The following week, Anna begged me to bake with her. After my last experience, my confidence was low but we both really wanted a sweet treat. I decided to make something we’ve made before, hoping a success would boost my confidence a little while giving us the sweetness we desired.
At Christmas time, I made some really great cut out sugar cookies that were egg free and dairy free. Now that Anna can eat dairy products, I thought, why wait until Christmas, let’s make them now!
Modifications included butter instead of shortening and I added a little milk for moisture. As Anna and I mixed the batter together, it quickly became apparent that these would be more like sweet biscuit cutouts instead of cookies. Turns out, this recipe is low on sugar, only 1/4 cup of white sugar, so we also achieved my goal of making something healthier for us.
The fun part was rolling the dough out and watching Anna have fun cutting the cookies out. We used shapes like dogs and hearts so that we didn’t have Christmas looking cookies. Anna added star sprinkles and in the oven they went. Ten minutes later, I pulled them out to find perfect shaped cookies.
“They’re yummy, Mommy,” said Anna through a mouth full of cookies.
Yes, they were still yummy, even without so much sugar. But I must confess, I miss my fully sugared treats. Here’s out modified recipe. Hope you like it.
Cut out sugar cookies, no eggs with dairy
2 cups flour1/4 tsp. salt1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 tablespoons softened butter1/4 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons applesauceLittle milk
1 teaspoon vanilla (could use more)
Combine flour, salt, baking soda.
In another bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add applesauce and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Should form a smooth ball.
Chill the dough. Then, roll out and use cookie cutters to make cut outs.
Heat oven to 325 degrees and bake for 10 minutes.
Lisa Mitchell is an editor for Berks-Mont Newspapers. Submit your recipes to lmitchell@berksmontnews.com and label the email TMKW recipe.
