Happy national oatmeal cookie day!
Tomorrow, April 30, is National Oatmeal Cookie Day. As far as cookies go, oatmeal cookies are one of the healthier cookies - especially if you swap out the white flour in them for a more nutritious flour. I’ve been experimenting with white whole wheat flour lately (specifically King Arthur Organic White Whole Wheat Flour), and decided to see if the family would notice that I made a change to my oatmeal raisin cookies. They did not.
If you are unfamiliar with white whole wheat flour, you’re not alone. It confuses many people. It’s different from white flour and from traditional wheat flour. Traditional white flour has 1g of fiber per serving. Traditional whole wheat flour has 3g of fiber per serving. White whole wheat flour is comparable to traditional whole wheat with 3g of fiber per serving, also. Mayoclinic.com has more information:
Regular white bread is made with refined grains, which go through a process that strips out certain parts of the grain. But white whole-wheat bread — like regular whole-wheat bread — is made with the whole grain.
The difference between white whole-wheat bread and regular whole-wheat bread is in the type of wheat used. Regular whole-wheat bread is made with red wheat, which is dark in color and has a slightly bitter taste. White whole-wheat bread is made with an albino variety of wheat, which is lighter in color and has a sweeter, milder flavor.
So far, I’ve made muffins, waffles, and now cookies with the white whole wheat flour, and I’ve had no complaints. I also buy sandwich bread made with white whole wheat flour, and my boys really like it.
When organic white whole wheat flour is combined with organic slow cooking oats, it makes for a nutritious, fiber-dense base for any oatmeal cookie recipe. Add raisins to the cookie, and these cookies beat packaged cookies or even homemade chocolate chip cookies in nutrition hands down.
I’ve tweaked my traditional oatmeal cookie recipe. Use the best local/organic ingredients you can afford when making this recipe. Also, if your store has organic bulk bins, check them out for the oats and raisins. The price for bulk bin products is almost always less expensive than packaged. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 c butter (2 sticks) softened
- 1 c packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 c white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 c white whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp gorund cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 c rolled oats
- 1 c raisins
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Cream together butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.
- Combine flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Stir into butter mixture.
- Stir in oats and raisins.
- Drop by rounded teaspoons on ungreased baking sheet
- Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on your oven.
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Robin Shreeves didn’t particularly like to cook until she started paying attention to how the food she feeds her family affects the environment. Once she started experimenting with fresh, organic and local foods, her outlook on food and cooking changed dramatically. When she’s not writing the eco-friendly food blog for Mother Nature Network or attending to her two personal blogs A Little Greener Every Day and South Jersey Locavore , she can often be found in the kitchen, playing with the food that she prepares for her husband and two boys.
