Wheat-free almost healthy cookies.

My boyfriend and I aren't exactly romantic, and as such don't bother with the whole Valentines day thing. I do find it a bit on the weird side that on one day out of three hundred and sixty five of them we are supposed to lavish our partner with gifts to what? Prove our love? Meh. I say.

 On the other hand the day before Valentines day this year we had a really lovely day together. Nothing special, to most people at least, just a lie in, pancakes for breakfast, a little bit of a bar crawl, a good chat about everything and nothing, and take away. Its the sort of bread and butter of 'romance' for most relationships that have made it past a couple of years I imagine. So on February 14th still feeling more than averagely pleased to have him in my life, I decided to make horribly romantified cookies as a sign of my love.

This was to prove more difficult than it sounds. It being a Valentines day bake, they had to be red or pink. I am wheat intolerant and try to avoid flour as best I can. We had very limited supplies in our cupboard and fridge. No butter for instance. I'm also trying to keep to healthy-ish and non-processed foods at the moment, that meant that food colouring was out among other things.

Healthy-ish oaty cookies

These cookies have no regular flour, no butter. They are hugely adaptable to your tastes. I went for beetroot to help provide colour, sultanas and maple syrup.

Ingredients:

100g Porridge oats
40g Wheat free flour for un-shaped cookies. (Add an extra 100g if you want to shape them like I did. You can obviously use normal flour too if you want!)

1 egg
1 banana
1-2 tbsp honey/maple syrup/golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla essance

110g sultanas
50g grated beetroot
sprinkling dessicated coconut
small handful dried cranberries

(you could use crushed nuts of any variety, other dried fruits, grated carrot, chocolate, jam and so on!)

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients. I added the extra flour at the end when I realised the mixture was too wet to shape.

Add the banana and mash in to the mix.

Add the syrup/honey. I used maple syrup, and could probably have used a little more than I did. I recommend tasting the mixture for sweetness before you add the egg (I was expecting the beetroot to supply more sweetness than it did!)

Add the vanilla and egg and mix together thoroughly.

If you've made shapeable cookies, pat out on to a floured surface and cut off sections to shape.  The mix is still pretty gooey, nothing like a pastry dough.

 Put on a tray with baking paper, and cook for about 15 minuets in a pre heated 180 degree oven.

 

These came out with a lovely rustic quality and a really delicate and great taste. Make sure you taste the mix before adding the egg to ensure you've added enough sweetness though, I ended up adding a sprinkling of brown sugar to help mine along a little. Have fun experimenting with different flavourings!


All images and content are © Chloe Cooter 2013.