Turning Unhealthy Cookie Recipes into Healthier Ones

Ever since our mother passed away suddenly from a heart attack at the young age of 62, our family has become more aware of the importance of a healthy diet. We know that there are other causes for poor health, such as stress and lack of exercise, but eating too many unhealthy food ingredients, such as hydrogenated oils, certainly plays a part as well. Rather than completely removing desserts from our diet, we now replace unhealthy recipe ingredients with healthier ones.

Our mother frequently used margarine and passed away at a young age, though we know there are usually other factors involved. Our father's mother used butter regularly and lived to be 96. We have removed margarine from our diet altogether because many of them are hydrogenated. Some margarines claim to be non-hydrogenated, but we would rather eat something that is natural, like butter, than something that is altered, although we still use it sparingly in our diet. Some are comfortable with eating margarines that say 0 transfat on the label, but I still wonder how they converted it from oil to margarine.

Turning Unhealthy Cookie Recipes into Healthier Ones

One easy recipe that can be made into a healthier one is cookies. Over the years I have experimented with taking original recipes and turning them into healthy ones. What I discovered was that most cookie recipes have a common base.

While experimenting with these ideas, make sure you mix the wet ingredients together first, then in another bowl, mix the dry ingredients together, and lastly add the wet ingredients to the dry. Don't over-mix ingredients. Also, if you decide to replace margarine with butter, the butter has to be left out to soften first. If the butter has been in the refrigerator and is hard, you may be tempted to melt it on the stove, but I found that this usually ruins the cookie recipes. It must be soft enough to mix with the sugar until it is smooth and fluffy.

Cookie Base

If you look at a great deal of the cookie recipes available in books and online, you will find that most have what I would call, the "cookie base" consisting of the butter, flour and sugar. I have gotten to the point where I now use this base for a great variety of cookies and seldom use recipes anymore. Using this cookie base actually gives you control over how you'd like to make the cookies and the freedom to be creative and make them healthy at the same time.

Replace 1 Cup Margarine with 1 Cup of Butter (if you are comfortable using butter as I am), Yogurt or Applesauce

One cup of margarine called for in many recipes, can be replaced with one cup of butter, if you want, or if you want the cookie recipe to be healthier still, you can experiment with an equal portion replacement of applesauce and yogurt, in other words 1/2 a cup of applesauce and 1/2 a cup of yogurt, or use all three, up to 1 cup.

The recipe still needs some healthier fat, otherwise it will probably be too dry.

The key, I found to this portion of the recipe while experimenting, is that the cookie does still require some kind of fat, and healthier fats are still better than unhealthy ones. When I tried to replace the butter portion of the recipe with only healthy ingredients, such as one cup of applesauce, I found that sometimes the cookies came out dry. They do seem to need some kind of fat and the yogurt can really help. Think of anything healthy that has the consistency of butter or yogurt and try it out, you may be pleasantly surprised. I have experimented with bananas and ground flax seed and was pleased with the results, though I still had to use the yogurt as well. Just take those healthier ingredients and make sure that altogether they equal 1 cup.

2 Eggs - I still use the 2 Eggs and seldom replace them

Most cookie recipes call for 2 eggs. I don't replace the eggs, but if you were concerned about them, I must confess that after experimenting, the only ingredient I found that could replace the rising effect of the eggs is flax seed, which I used to ground into a powder. Perhaps there is something else that I'm not aware of that can replace eggs. Perhaps you can find another replacement that works well for you.

2 1/4 Cups of Flour

Most of the recipes call for plain, white, all-purpose flour, so I replace the all-white flour portion of the recipe with whole wheat flour. However, some stone-ground, whole-wheat flours have such a strong wheat flavor that some cannot enjoy a cookie made with it, so in this case you can divide the 2 1/4 cups of flour with half unbleached white and half wheat. At least make sure that the white flour portion is unbleached.

Wheat or Gluten Free

Another exciting alternative is to grind nuts into flour. Usually the drier nuts work best. You can also grind rice into flour, but just make sure it's really ground well so your cookies don't crunch! Grinding nuts or rice into flour actually makes a gluten-free recipe as well! You can do this with a variety of grains, but you do have to be careful with harder grains! Be sure that they are fully ground and not crunchy. I have a grinder specifically designed for this.

1 1/2 Cups of Sugar - replaced at least partially with fruit jams or preserves

Jams, or preserves turned out to be a successful partial-replacement for sugar. I use many kinds of berry preserves, orange marmalade, or strawberry jams, especially the ones with chunks of fruit. I still put some organic sugar in, though because I discovered that the final cookie sweetened only with jams was not quite sweet enough, so I divide the 1 1/2 Cups of healthy sugar into equal portions of jam and sugar.

To make the cookie recipe healthier, though, I usually cut down a little on the amount of sugar called for, but this is a matter of taste. I never use white, refined sugar in my cookie recipes. As a matter of fact, we've removed refined sugar from our diet altogether. We only use unrefined organic, turbinado, raw or pure cane sugar.

Some recipes will call for 3/4 Cup white sugar and 3/4 Cup "brown sugar". If you look at the Brown Sugar package in the store, you will discover that is usually just white, refined sugar with molasses. I decided to buy my own molasses in this case, and just add a little to the healthier, unrefined sugar. Another sweet alternative to molasses is maple syrup. Yes, just think of that wonderful, healthy maple syrup taste in a cookie recipe! Remember that the maple syrup is more of a liquid, though, so you can't put too much or it will make the batter runny, so I mix some of the maple syrup with the organic sugar.

1 Teaspoon each of Baking Soda, Salt, and Vanilla

The rest of the ingredients, 1 teaspoon each of baking soda, salt, and vanilla, are pretty much standard and required, so I always put those in, though the vanilla could be replaced with any wonderful alternatives, such as almond, lemon, or orange extracts. Have fun with the flavors! If you decide to go with lemon or lime cookies, make sure you grate some of the organic lemon or lime rind into the recipe since the extract will probably not be strong enough used alone.

1 Cup of Nuts

Just think about the great variety of nuts available to us for our cookie recipes. You can even take this one step further. If you have any type of grinder, you can make your own flour with the nuts. Now how healthy is that!

Spices

While coming up with creative ideas for cookie flavors, you may want to be different and try more unusual spices such as cardamom, fresh grated ginger, nutmeg, anise, cinnamon, etc. (not necessarily all at once of course!).

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes

When you're ready to bake the cookies, take a look at the texture of your finished product before shaping them. Because ingredient substitutions with various levels of moisture are used, be sure that the batter texture is about the same as it would be if you had made the typical unhealthy recipe. You should be able to form the dough into balls or shapes. If the mixture looks too runny, it will not work and you may need to add flour or ground nuts to bring it to the right texture. Shape the cookie any way you'd like. You can also top each cookie with a little fruit in the center.

It may take practice, and there may be a trial and error period at times, but have fun and be creative!