I ate two of these healthy sugar cookies, straight from the oven!
The best healthy sugar cookies
It’s officially December now, which means you have a great excuse to make cookies.
Why not go ahead and bake a batch of these soft sugar cookies, to find out if your self restraint is better than mine?
(As if anyone needed an excuse to bake cookies.)
The perfect sugar cookie should be thick, buttery, and so incredibly delicious it makes you want to polish off the entire batch in a single sitting.
This healthy sugar cookie recipe fulfills all of the above requirements. And yet these cookies are whole grain, lower in sugar, and cholesterol free at the same time.
Yes, healthy sugar cookies!
Do you bake cookies during the holidays?
My grandmother loved baking Christmas cookies more than anyone else I know. Each year, she’d make at least ten different kinds of cookies.
Michelle and I liked to help. She helped by rolling out the dough… and I helped by eating all the finished cookies! My grandfather nicknamed me “Cookie Monster” because, even before my head was tall enough to reach the table, I was stealing cookies off the tray.
Some things haven’t changed much.
The recipe was adapted from my Vegan Sugar Cookies.
Healthy Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup spelt flour or whole wheat pastry or all purpose flour (or try these Keto Sugar Cookies)
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt (just under level)
- 3/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 cup white sugar or sucanat, coconut sugar, or evaporated cane juice (or xylitol for a sugar-free version)
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 tbsp milk of choice
- 1/4 cup butter or coconut oil
Instructions
- Healthy Sugar Cookies Recipe: Combine dry ingredients and mix very, very well. In a separate bowl, melt the vegan butter, then stir in vanilla and milk. Pour dry into wet and mix again. Form balls or roll out (not too thin), then use a cookie cutter to make shapes. If you want soft cookies, you’ll need to get the dough very cold. (So roll the balls first, then fridge until cold.) Cook in a 325F preheated oven for 9 minutes. They will look very underdone when you take them out, but that’s ok!! Just let them cool for 5 minutes before touching. (I know it’s hard!) These cookies will keep at least four days, in a lidded plastic container. As a general rule, you should store soft cookies in plastic containers and crispy cookies in glass ones.
Notes
More Delicious Holiday Cookie Ideas
Refined white sugar is poison and causes disease, including diabetes and cancer.
Please edit your recipe to remove white sugar and substitute honey, maple syrup, or some other raw sugar.
The sucanat, coconut sugar, or evaporated cane juice listed in the recipe are all unrefined sugar options. Hope that helps!
Jason
My girls and I have been making these every year for Christmas. They are great! I use coconut oil.
These are SO adorable!
Loved these sugar cookies. They are very delicate without being full of sugar. I used real butter which worked well. Also used sprinkles to jazz them up. I’m going to try a variation with almond extract instead of vanilla and finely chopped almond instead of sprinkles.
I am thinking of venturing to use the homemade ghee/clarified butter for the buttery spread. The thing is, i made it like a few weeks ago and the lid is loose fitting. It has been on the counter, not in the fridge. Wow, this post is from December 2011?
How many many servings does this make and how many calories per serving? Thanks!
It looks like she hadn’t posted nutrition facts for her recipes back in 2011 when this one was posted, but I found a similar recipe that does have nutrition facts: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2017/11/30/cream-cheese-stuffed-cinnamon-sugar-pillow-cookies/ The healthy sugar cookies will have fewer calories though because they aren’t stuffed.
In class we were trying to figure out how many cookies were in the recipe. Our answers were from 13 cookies- 60 cookies! Still looks yum!
Do you know the calories and carb count? And are these acceptable for a diabetic ? Is there anything you would substitute ?
Hi, it looks like this is an older recipe that hopefully Katie will update soon because she wasn’t posting calories on her recipes back in 2011 when it was posted. For Diabetic-friendly cookies, I would definitely recommend asking a doctor (because everyone is different), but I know many Diabetics use xylitol in Katie’s recipes in an equal amount to replace sugar, and that usually works fine: https://amzn.to/2rqX1ER
How thick/thin do you roll out the dough?
Whatever size you wish!
I found myself desperately craving a sweet treat tonight, so I cut this recipe in half and turned it into one big whole wheat cookie! I like soft cookies, so I refrigerated it for about 30 minutes and then gave it almost 15 minutes in the oven because of the larger size. It was a perfect way to satisfy my late-night sweet tooth without feeling like I overindulged!
can you use i can’t believe it’s not butter light spread for the earth balance spread?
also are the nutrition facts anywhere?
Made these today with my daughter and they turned out great. We added in some vegan sprinkles and they were a hit!
Can you use maple syrup as a sweetener in these? I know they are sugar cookies but thought I would ask!
We haven’t tried so honestly have no idea! It sounds like a fun experiment, but I’d think you would probably have to play around with the liquid ratio.
Jason (media relations)
How long should you leave the dough in the fridge?
Anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight (covered) is fine!
This was delicious! I did not cool the dough and put them straight in the oven and they still came out all nice and soft. I only got to try one cookie since my son ate them all…
Has anyone tried these with oat flour?