The Baker Diaries: Coffee Shop Inspiration

Healthy Oatmeal & Honey Cookies

The other day I went to local chain of coffee shops with my Aunt because we were craving their spinach and corn sandwich. While I was there I had their oatmeal and honey cookie and man... it was so totally delicious. I usually don't like sweet treats with tea or coffee, but that cookie was so good, I couldn't get enough.

I've had that cookie on my mind ever since that day but I wanted a healthy version of it. Let me explain, I live with a family full of diabetics and keeping the sweet treats to a minimum is essential. So I decided to leave the sugar out of the recipe. You won’t need to add extra flour because the amount of sugar used is quite minimal. After I ate my cookies I felt this feeling of healthy calm come over me, I'm sure that was just a fantasy. But what's life without a few fantasies.

Now, you should be a little careful of the honey you use. Many of the branded packaged honey available in supermarkets tend to have a lot of sugar added to them. I bought my honey from the Khadi Gram Udyog at Vile Parle. It claims to be pure honey on the package (still has 1.5 grams added sugar, though) but I cant really be sure because there's no way of testing honey without conducting scientific experiments. (Is there?)

To know more about the benefits of honey click here.

Anyway, getting back to the recipe, this is what you’ll need:

1 cup honey
1 egg
3/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (heaped)

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 175 C.
In a bowl, mix the flour, oats and baking soda together and keep aside.
Using an electric/hand mixer beat the butter well. Now add honey and beat to incorporate. Next add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until it appears creamy.
Now fold in the dry ingredients in 3 additions. Mix well. Do Not Use Your Hands to make the cookie dough. Use a silicon spatula. The honey and oats together make this dough extremely sticky.
Using a small ice-cream scoop drop cookie dough onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Bake for about 12-15 mins for soft cookies. If you prefer crisp cookies, bake covered in foil for 15 mins and another 5 mins uncovered or until crisp.

This recipe makes around 3 dozen cookies.

My cookies must have been nice because while I was photographing them from various angles and trying to make them look good. Someone (and by someone I mean my lab, Jazzy) was drooling all over the floor. He’s my favourite little guinea pig. I haven’t made a single thing so far that he hasn’t loved ;)