All my life, I've loved to bake cookies and give them to my family and friends. In the last couple of weeks I've created a few cookie recipes for two types of people — those who normally don't want to eat cookies at all because they're usually too sweet and those who are only familiar with the traditionally sweet cookies, which they like to eat.
For the people with a sweet tooth, I started with a basic cookie recipe that had the same amount of sweetener as the typical sugar cookie, but would be made with healthier, more wholesome, ingredients. I wanted to give them something they'd probably be familiar with and a cookie that I could use as a measure for determining what recipes to try on them next. If they liked this cookie, then maybe they'd be more open to trying something more different and less sweet the next time.
Oatmeal Coconut Drop Cookies
For this cookie, I used a high ratio of fresh organic butter (Straus Family Creamery) and an organic sweetener called Sucanat (Wholesome Sweeteners, and Now Foods) — also known as Rapadura (wikipedia), or "Whole Cane Sugar" (Rapunzel Organic Fair Trade Foods) — which, unlike white sugar, is less refined and made from dehydrated sugar cane juice that retains much of the molasses and minerals.
To this, I added eggs, whole oat flour (Bob's Red Mill), rolled oats, and Let's Do Organic unsweetened coconut (Edward & Sons). And that's it — a pretty simple cookie. I baked them on lightly greased cookie sheets for about 11 minutes in a preheated 375-degree oven. The cookies were extremely rich, buttery, and delicate. They could easily break apart in your hands.
As I offered them to my friends, at first there were a few protests from one who especially didn't like to eat a lot of sweets. The others started tasting right away and assured the protester that he would like the cookies too, because they weren't too sweet. (I think that's because Sucanat, combined with a whole-grain flour, tastes different, more balanced, than refined white sugar with white flour.) They all said that they liked the cookies, and that they shared the cookies with another friend who really had a sweet tooth, and apparently he liked them too.
From there, I created my next recipes using ingredients I had on hand in my cupboard and basing some of them on Julia Ferre's recipes in her cookbook, Basic Macrobiotic Cooking.
Julia Ferre's cookie recipes give you a really good idea of what proportions you can use to come out with a more well-balanced cookie — one that is not too yang (she uses no eggs in her recipes) and not too yin (the sweeteners are either fruit or certain syrups or nectars, in much smaller amounts).
So here is a list of the cookie recipes I made to satisfy a not-so-sweet tooth in a gentler, more balanced way:
- Half-recipe of Sweet Nut Butter Cookies (Vegan)
- Oatmeal Fruit and Nut Cookies (including 1 egg)
- Oat Biscuits With A Little Dried Fruit
- Cindy's Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Black Bean Brownies #1
- Black Bean Brownies #2
Related Blog Articles:
The Benefits Of Whole Foods
No More Sugar
What Counts As Sugar? Peanut Butter — My Oldest Most Favorite Food
