Healthy Carrot Cake Oatmeal Cookies
From Amy’s Healthy Baking:
- 1 cup instant oats
- ¾ cup whole wheat or gluten-free* flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- ¾ cup grated carrots
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the maple syrup until thoroughly incorporated. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the carrots. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. (If chilling longer, cover with plastic wrap, ensuring it touches the entire surface of the cookie dough.)
- Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking sheet or parchment paper
- Drop the cookie dough into 14 rounded scoops on the baking sheet. Flatten slightly using a spatula. (The cookies don’t spread very much!) Bake at 325°F for 12-15 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Notes: It’s incredibly important to measure both the oats and flour correctly, using the spoon and level off method. If scooped from the container using the measuring cup, you’ll end up with 1.5 times as much, which will dry out your cookies and make them crumbly.
Melted margarine may be substituted for the coconut oil or butter. Regardless of which is used, be sure that the egg is at room temperature before whisking it in. A cold egg added straight from the fridge would rapidly cool the fat source, resulting in small blobs of semi-solid coconut oil, butter, or margarine.
Honey or agave may be substituted in place of the pure maple syrup.
If the cookies are still really flimsy after cooling on the baking sheet for 15 minutes and threaten to break apart, let them cool completely on the baking sheet. That won’t let them crisp up too much, and they’ll still stay soft for an entire week!
