"Healthy" Cookies?

Cookies may seem like an odd topic for a blog about bodybuilding, but getting to eat them is the advantage I have being the wife and not the actual bodybuilder.

I love to bake.  I love fresh-from-the-oven baked goods.  I love trying new recipes.  And I love trying to come up with ways to make cookies and muffins and cakes as healthy as they can be (while still tasting good.)

I’ve been baking a lot this fall, partly to celebrate the cooling weather and partly because I tend to bake when I’m feeling stressed.  When I was in grad school, I baked constantly.    In one day I made 20 loaves of quick breads: zucchini, banana, pumpkin.  If you lived within a five mile radius of my house, you probably got bread from me that Christmas.

Now I get the bonus of using baking as an activity to share with my kids.  They sit on the counter on either side of the mixing bowl, “helping.”  They taste and smell most of the ingredients, at least until the egg is added.  They’ve been well trained that once the raw egg goes in, there’s no more tasting.  Just say no to Salmonella!

This morning was beautiful and crisp and chilly, and practically screaming for molasses cookies.

I have a recipe for molasses cookies that I love, and that is decently healthy.  It came out of a fitness magazine years ago.  My only complaint is that is calls for ½ cup of oil, an ingredient I refuse to bake with.  (Baked goods should not make your fingertips glisten with oil, according to me.)

I usually substitute butter, which has the added benefit of tasting better, but today I couldn’t find any in the fridge.

I often use milk as a substitute for oil in muffin recipes, so I decided it was the perfect chance to play with the cookie recipe a little and see if I could make it even better for us. 

The fact that I’ve already eaten four of them should say something about how they turned out.

My New “Healthy-ish” Molasses Cookie Recipe:

½ cup milk (I used whole milk because that’s all we tend to have in the house – for the kiddos.)

¼ cup molasses

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

¼ tsp cloves

Roll the dough into balls a little over an 1 inch in size.   The dough is sticky.  The original recipe called for chilling the dough for two hours, but I don’t have the patience for that.

Instead, use two spoons to scoop out and drop a blop of dough into a small bowl of white sugar.  Use the spoons to form the ball and roll it in sugar.

Use the bottom of a drinking glass to flatten the dough balls a little on the cookie sheet.  (Without fat added, they won’t spread or flatten much on their own.)

Bake at 375⁰ for 8-10 minutes.

Mmmmm…..