Monday, April 26, 2010

No Butter Sugar Cookies

To further stick with my baking with oil theme I give you the no butter sugar cookies. These cookies just like the other no butter ones did not come out greasy and were really tasty. What I think I really liked is that they were not overwhelmingly sweet like some sugar cookies. They have a nice subtle underlying sweetness about them, which is perfect and you can always up the subtle sweetness by putting a sprinkling of sugar on them before baking. I tried this on a few cookies just to test it out and the sugar melted leaving a thin covering on the top of the cookie. If you're afraid the sugar will burn or brown from the high heat of baking it doesn't, so no need to worry.Since these are drop cookies there is no need for chilling them before baking and I believe that they would work in bar cookie format too. This recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder which I truly believe helps give the cookies lift and not become too dense and flat. Also for all of those inpatient people these cookies bake up fast, in my oven they were done in 6 minutes so barely after getting one batch out and started cooling the next were ready to be taken from the oven.
I really do recommend these cookies, even if you're put off by the fact that there is no butter in them you at least know in a pinch when you need to do baking have no butter and don't feel like going to the store you still have options. And hey maybe after trying them just once you'll be converted, well at least partially converted.

No Butter Sugar Cookies
Adapted from: RecipeZaar

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2/3 c canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 c sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together with a spatula.
2. Create a well in the center and add eggs, vanilla, and oil beating just these together.
3. Take spatula and mix everything together until it is all incorporated.
4. Drop by teaspoon onto cookie sheet.
5. Flatten out slightly or optional take the bottom of glass moistened with water and dipped in sugar to flatten cookie.
6. Bake at 400 degrees F for 6-10 minutes (mine were done at 6 minutes).


Sunday, April 11, 2010

No Butter Oatmeal Cookies

So we all know that I've been known to add avocado to my chocolate chip cookie in order to reduce half the saturated fat filled butter with a healthier fat. Well one day I got the notion that I really needed to bake some cookies, except I had no butter (probably a good thing if you really think about it), so it hit me why not use oil to bake. I mean you use oil in those boxed brownies and cakes, right so why couldn't it work for cookie dough. So long story short I set out to find a recipe that already existed, as I didn't feel like converting any of mine over. In a quick search I found 2 promising cookie recipes, so here I am to share the first of the 2 that I made.

A quick note, in case you didn't know oil can be a healthier alternative to butter. Yep, that's right if you use the right oil, something like canola, it has a low amount of saturated fat and higher amounts of the healthier fats.

Without further ado I give you one of the best oatmeal cookies I've had. I followed the reader suggestions of f the site I got this from and made a few small tweaks in the recipe and was not at all disappointed by this cookies. I dislike thin and hard oatmeal cookies and that often happens to a lot of the recipes I've tried. OH, but this one did not disappoint at all. Of course it probably helped that I followed one suggestion and added baking powder to the dough to help make the cookie thicker. What I got was a plump soft cookie that you could taste the brown sugar (probably due to reducing the amount of white sugar used in the recipe) and cinnamon, which I added for an extra layer of flavor. Also, I was worried that the cookies might come out really oily, but I have to say there was no greasiness about these at all. Bottom line I thought these cookies were so good that I cannot wait to make it again.

No Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from: All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder (my own addition)
3/4 tsp salt
cinnamon to taste (my own addition)
1 c sugar (I reduced it to 1/2 c and w/o a problem)
1 c brown sugar
1 1/2 c oats
3/4 c canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 2. Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powdeer, salt, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, and oats. 3. Make a well in the center and add canola oil, eggs, and vanilla 4. Mix together with a spatula. Form the dough into balls and place on cookie sheet slightly flattening them out 5. Bake 10-12 minutes