Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Homestyle Sugar Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies




"My son, eat a little honey because it is good..." Proverbs 24:13a

I get a hankering every now and then for a homey cookie to dunk in a glass of icy cold milk. I'm big on texture and flavor. I tinkered with this recipe for awhile before I got it just right. This is one delicious cookie. Even my anti-sugar-free mom likes them! (You should see her pantry. Shameless...you'd think a teenager lived there alone!)

Now, I'll have to let you know right up front that I hate artificial sweeteners and I never use them. So, if that is the type of recipe you're looking for...this isn't the right blog spot for you. I use honey, agave, pure maple syrup, honey powder (rolled with wheat starch) and molasses in my recipes. That's it for sweeteners on this site. The closer it is to how the LORD made it, the better it is for us. That's my food philosophy and I'm sticking with it.

On my handwritten recipe I actually titled these cookies Agave Honey Oatmeal Raisin Cookies...yeah, it's a mouthful, but so are these big babies!!

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

1 stick (1/2 cup) plus 2 Tablespoons softened salted butter
1 egg, room temperature
1 box raisins (I used the 1.5 oz size that I slip in my hubby's lunch sack)
1/2 cup pecan pieces
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (DON'T LEAVE THIS OUT!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup honey powder (the kind that's rolled in wheat starch, not in sugar)
in a glass measuring cup pour: 1/3 cup honey, and then add up to the 1/2 cup line with Agave Maple Syrup
1 Tablespoon molasses
just under one cup of whole wheat flour (unless you don't have the honey powder, in that case...skip the honey powder and use the whole cup of whole wheat flour)

Here's what you do:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream the butter with the honey/agave mixture

Add the egg, vanilla and molasses, mix well...
it might look a little iffy but that's okay

Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl

Incorporate the dry into the wet

Put parchment on your cookie sheet
(Parchment is your best bud in the baking world)
You don't have parchment? Grease your sheets, as normal for baking.
Tomorrow, go get yourself some parchment. You'll be glad you did.


The dough is thick, really thick. Here's the fun part:
Take a handful of dough...a little more than a Tablespoonful and pat it out in your hand like a hamburger patty.
Pat them a little thin. I like my cookies to be the same size as my palm. I do have small hands. You make them how you like them. Remember, I'm shootin' for milk dunkers here.

Place 9 of these on your sheet (they don't spread, don't worry).

Bake them for 12 minutes. Let them cool on racks.

Pour an icy cold glass of moo-juice and sink that yummy thing!

Uh, Gracie says to tell you, "If you have kids, let them lick the bowl."


Okay, questions...

Q:What is honey powder and where do I find it?
A:Honey powder is something the LORD clued me in on a couple of days before my birthday last July. I like cake for my birthday (duh) and baking sugar free means that I have to have a heavy, majorly dense cake if I make it with liquid sweeteners. So, I wondered (in prayer, really) had anyone thought of dehydrating honey so that it would produce a lighter, fluffier birthday cake for ME! Yes, honey powder is the answer to this problem. I bought mine at Bulkfoods.com. The one I bought is rolled in wheat starch. There are other varieties out there on the world wide web that are rolled in sugar. (Defeats my whole sugar-free purpose and plan. So, I got the wheat starch one.) I learned right away, that you MUST reduce the amount of flour that you bake with in the recipe when you use honey powder because the wheat starch around the honey dries everything out. Dry cake is yucky. So, reduce the flour. And if you don't have honey powder...just make these cookies without the darn stuff...they'll be just fine...I promise!


Any other questions?
Q: I'm new to the blog and I'm wondering why you bake sugar free.
A: I'm addicted to sugar so I don't eat it anymore. I like sweets, so the LORD is teaching me to adapt to a new way of baking. So far, so good.

Here's another gander at this goodness!



Thanks for reading My Sugar Free Kitchen. If you have trouble commenting or would like to send me an email, please do: morrisforjesus@yahoo.com!
God bless you and enjoy your cookies!










1 comment:

  1. Having tried one of these cookies myself, I will testify to their yumminess!! Great recipe!

    ReplyDelete