I ate two of these healthy sugar cookies, straight from the oven!
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 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 soft, 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.
Healthy Sugar Cookies
Healthy Sugar Cookies!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup spelt, ww pastry, or all-purpose flour (Update! Click for Grain Free Sugar Cookies.)
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt (just under level)
- 1/4 tsp plus 1/8 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 and 1/2 tablespoons milk of choice
- 1/4 cup butter-type spread, such as Earth Balance (Some readers say you can use coconut oil, but I haven't tried it. I wouldn't recommend using a low-fat buttery spread.)
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.
These are the same vegan sugar cookies I decorated as baby animals and brought to the football party.
More Healthy Cookie Ideas:
Them cookies looks delicious! I’m getting married on Dec 17,2011 I wish you could send me some for that day or week! Great Job!
Aww happy (early) wedding!! 🙂
My mom and I bake Christmas cookies every year! We always use my great grandma’s teacake recipe 🙂
This really isn’t related to this post at all, but I have a question for the dessert queen: I have never used brown rice syrup before but would like to try it. Does it have a distinctive taste, like maple syrup or honey (sorry vegans!), or is it more “neutral” like….I don’t know, a simple sugar syrup? What about viscosity– thick like molasses or more runny? What about agave, I have never used that either?
BUT thank you so much for this recipe! For the past 2 years my go-to sugar cookie recipe has been Cooking Light’s slice and bake icebox sugar cookie recipe (http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/basic-icebox-sugar-cookies-10000000222237/ — not vegan either, it uses an egg white but I usually just leave it out and add a little milk instead) for its simplicity and the fact that it only uses 1/4 c butter for 1 cup of flour, but holy cow! Even cutting the 2/3 cup of sugar down to 1/2 cup makes me need to brush my teeth afterwards! I like using part brown sugar too. You say that these cookies are soft– are they chewy soft, or cakey soft? Thank you again, I am starting my must-bake Christmas cookie list and these are at the top!
Hmmm… it *looks* like caramel, and it’s thick like that too. I can’t really describe the taste, though!
Agave is more like pure maple syrup, in that it’s not extremely thick. (Maybe a little thicker than maple syrup.) And it tastes like… lol once again I can’t explain it! People say it tastes kinda like honey.
The cookies are cakey-soft… as long as you don’t overcook them :).
Don’t you think it’s misleading that for photos you use things that are not part of the recipe (like this store-bought icing)?
Umm no, that’s ridiculous. Photographers (or cookbook authors) do that all the time. Ice cream on top of pie, whipped cream on a hot cocoa recipe, syrup on pancakes… I really don’t see how saying I used store-bought icing is a problem. If you want to use it on your cookies, you CAN. It’s not like I’ve done something in my photos that people can’t rerceate at home.
Your sugar cookies are so dainty looking! I will have to try this recipe as sugar cookies do look great on holiday platters!
I would like to also request some breakfast/brunch, drink, or ‘hearty” recipe ideas that go along with the holiday season. I love the idea of gingerbread flavor! A gingerbread oat breakfast of some sort sounds amazing to me!! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Thanks!
I definitely want to post some savory recipes! And lol I have more gingerbread recipes to post too :). And peppermint!! Chocolate-mint is the best!
this looks so yummy! Ive bookmarked it ready to get the ingredients next time I brave the supermarket, thanks! Belle
Hi, Katie! I made these cookies tonight (I live in the middle east, so it’s nighttime here) and they were very tasty. I’m not vegan so I used full-fat dairy milk and real butter. I also used white sugar and whole wheat pastry flour. Not sure how healthy these actually were given all of my substitutions, but I don’t eat cookies for their nutritional value. At any rate, thanks for the recipe! Quick question: I made your chocolate chip blondies a few weeks ago and they tasted like sweetened chick peas, not blondies. I mean, they were tasty (I happen to like chick peas — sweetened or not) but my husband could taste the beans and didn’t dig them so much. What did I do wrong?
Hi Midge,
Unfortunately, since I wasn’t there when you made them, it’s impossible for me to know what could’ve gone wrong! But do be sure to drain and rinse the beans very well. And I’ve heard that some brands have more of a bean-y taste than others.
Thanks for your reply, Katie. I’ll try the blondie’s again with a different brand of chick pea. If you have a second, would you let me know which brand you use? Thanks!
Usually Westbrae
Those look fantastic!!!! We’ve been making cookies all day, because we’re having a little christmas party this afternoon 🙂 YAY!
Back in my unhealthy days..I remember buying a box of iced sugar cookies and eating nearly the entire container in one evening!! These cookies remind me of those-YUM-but obviously much more HEALTHY!! Great recipe! 🙂
These cookies didn’t work when I subbed almond flour (needed gluten free and did not have GF baking mix on hand). Don’t have a lot of experience with almond flour though–it worked for me as a sub in some muffins. Maybe that was the problem? Dough was DELICIOUS though. What do you think is the best GF flour option for baking cookies?
Yes, I wouldn’t recommend baking with almond flour unless you combine it with other flours and xantham gum. It needs something to hold it together. A good gf option is to buy a gf mix, such as Arrowhead Mills. Or google for how to use xantham gum in gf baked goods.
lol…that MUST be a trick question,I usually deem the holidays an amazing excuse for themed desserts
so funny – actually checked your blog over a week ago to see if you had sugar cookies. Ended up making something up – they were actually quite similar to yours! Thanks for posting! love you blog!
I also topped them with cashew creme frosting. So good!!
Love sugar cookies!!
So excited to do some cookie baking! We just decorated our apartment for the holidays and I found a bunch of christmas themed sprinkles and cookie cutters. I need to perfect some recipes before going home to Chicago so I can impress my family.
I made them tonight but all they tasted like was baking soda for some reason.. I doubled the recipe, which equals to 3/4 tsp baking soda and I specifically remember using the 1/2 + 1/4 teaspons, but they still tasted like baking soda. Hmm..
I’m not sure what could’ve happened, except I know that sometimes it doesn’t work to just double all the ingredient amounts when doubling a recipe. 🙁
I enjoy Luna’s before workouts too!!!