5 Healthy Christmas Cookie Recipes
Showing off your baking skills with your “to die for” Christmas cookies is a holiday tradition in the many homes. But now that you’ve made the change to a healthy lifestyle, what are you supposed to do? Does being healthy mean saying goodbye to time honored traditions? No more cookies!?
No! Before you get all stressed out and sad, you get to keep your Christmas cookie baking tradition. Thank goodness.
This year, instead of making cookies loaded with terrible ingredients, we’re going to be a little more health conscious with our healthy Christmas cookie recipes! Below are 5 cookie recipes that will show off your baking skills while keeping you fit!
1. Christmas Butter Spritz Cookie
Ingredients:
- 1 cup almond meal/flour
- 1 cup raw cashew meal/flour
- 1/3 cup coconut flakes, shredded
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/3 cup raw vanilla infused agave nectar
- 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds only
- 1/2 tsp butter flavor or 2 tsp vanilla extract
Preparation:
- If you make your own almond meal, be sure to remove the skins from the almonds if you want your cookie to be creamy white color.
- In a food processor, fitted with the “S” blade, break down the almonds, cashews, and coconut into a flour – individually.
- Now combine the flours, coconut, salt, agave, vanilla bean seeds and extracts. Process until it starts sticking together and forms a ball.
- Place the dough in the cookie press tube and follow the manufactures instructions. It’s very easy.
- Dry at 115 degrees for approximately 8-10 hours. Or until desired dryness is reached. This will keep up to 2 weeks in a sealed container.
2. Almond Butter Pumpkin Pie Truffles (grain and gluten free)
Ingredients
- ¼ cup pumpkin puree
- ¼ cup almond butter
- ¼ cup cream cheese
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 4g or ½ teaspoon fresh grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon coconut flour
- 2 packets stevia
- Vanilla bean white chocolate coating
- 2 oz (56g) cacao butter broken up into small pieces for melting
- ¼-1/2 vanilla bean pod scraped
- 20 drops stevia
Preparation
- In a medium sized bowl combine everything for filling including pumpkin puree, almond butter, cream cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, coconut flour, and stevia.
- Mix thoroughly until smoothly incorporated and no cream cheese chunks are left.
- Place mixture in refrigerator for 10-20 minutes or in the freezer for about 2-5 minutes if you don’t have the patience for the refrigerator.
- Pull out your chilled filling mixture and roll into medium to small sized balls a little less than an inch in diameter and place them on a small baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Place set balls back into the fridge or freezer for another 10 minutes in the fridge or 5 minutes in the freezer for the balls to harden. (You want this to harden fairly well you don’t want them very soft at all when you dip them or else you will be stuck with a mess)
- Heat a double boiler or a small pot that fits into a medium pot of soft boiling water over medium-medium low heat.
- Scrape vanilla bean pod conserving vanilla beans for adding once the cacao butter is melted(example above)
- Place cacao butter in double boiler and melt and add stevia then add vanilla beans and mix well.
- Turn your heat down to low to keep warm and melted or if your ready to start dipping you can either turn off the heat or transfer the melted white chocolate mixture to a smaller deeper bowl that would work for dipping (more like rolling) these.
- Pull out your hardened filling shaped into balls and one at a time drop into the white chocolate mixture and roll around until fully covered with mixture either with your fingers or a small spoon.
- When you feel it is covered enough begin to pull it out on the spoon and carefully tap the spoon on the inside of the bowl to get rid of any excess cacao butter pooling in the spoon. Be careful not to drop the truffle.
- Carefully place back onto the tray and repeat until you have coated all of the balls.
- You can either choose to let them cool at room temperature and serve them immediately or you can place them immediately in the fridge to harden and serve later. These will hold up in the fridge for about 3-5 days.
3. Soft Pumpkin Cookies
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients:
1 c unsweetened pumpkin
1/2 c coconut oil, or other healthy fat, melted
1/4 c sweetener, either granulated or liquid
3-4 scoops stevia extract, or approx 4-8 T additional sweetener, to taste
1 T orange flavoring or extract
Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 c gluten-free or regular flour
1 tsp baking soda (If you use flour with gluten, decrease to about 3/4 tsp)
1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 chopped or ground nuts, optional
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 375. Combine pumpkin, oil, sweetener, and orange flavoring in a medium bowl.
2. Add flour, baking soda, & seasonings. Mix just ’til combined.
3. Fold in nuts if using.
4. Make spoonfuls or scoops with a 2 Tbsp muffin scoop. If desired, roll in a bit of granulated sweetener before baking. You get a really nice “punch” of sweetness without adding a lot of sweetener when you coat cookies rather than adding more to the batter.
5. Place spoonfuls or scoops on a baking sheet
6. Bake 8 -10 minutes or until lightly browned. They will harden a bit as they cool, but will still be nice
4. Thumb Print Cookies (grain and gluten free, paleo)
Ingredients
For the dough:?
- 2 cups almond flour
- 2 tablespoons coconut flour
- 1/2 cup organic maple sugar or whole cane sugar or sucanat?
- 1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (I prefer Bernard Jensen)?
- 1 teaspoon arrowroot
- 3/4 teaspoon Celtic sea salt?
- 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cold, cut into tablespoons?
- 1/2 cup homemade chocolate hazelnut spread
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350ºF and and adjust rack to middle position. Place almond meal, coconut flour, maple sugar, gelatin, arrowroot and sea salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 2-3 times to combine. Add butter and process until dough forms a ball. Using a 1 1/2 -inch cookie scoop, spoon a cookie dough ball and then using your hands, roll it into a ball. Place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and using your finger, put an indentation in the top of the cookie dough ball. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake for 11 minutes, until just turning golden brown on the edges. Cool completely. When cool, spoon a teaspoon of chocolate hazelnut spread in the center of each cookie.
5. Hot Chocolate Drop Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 batch of Maple Syrup Marshmallows (you will need to cut 24 small squares for this recipe)
- Dry Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- ½ cup teff flour
- ¼ cup tapioca flour
- ½ cup of ground raw sunflower seeds
- ½ cup of organic cocoa
- 2 tbsp coconut sugar(optional)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- Wet Ingredients
- ? cup of organic coconut oil liquefied
- ½ cup of pure maple syrup at room temperature
- ½ cup of rice milk (or other dairy free milk) at room temperature
- ¼ cup apple sauce
- 1 egg
- 1tsp vanilla
- Drizzle
- ½ cup of Enjoy Life Mini Chips
- ½ tsp coconut oil
Preparation
- In a med bowl mix all dry ingredients
- In a large bowl combine oil, maple syrup, milk, and apple sauce. If not at room temperature the oil will harden up again, you can just warm up the whole bowl at this point if you like, melting the coconut oil. Be sure it isn’t too hot as it will cook the egg. Now add in the egg and vanilla.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.
- Set mixture in the fridge for 45 minutes to firm up slightly…to go from a slick muffin batter consistency to a thicker drop cookie consistency.
- Preheat oven to 375 F
- Drop rounded tablespoons of batter on to a non stick cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Immediately press marshmallows into the top of the cookie, so that they melt slightly and stick to the cookie. Set on a cooling rack.
- Melt chocolate chips and oil together until smooth. Place in a Ziploc bag and snip one corner, drizzle the chocolate over the tops of the cookies
With these five recipes you will be crowned queen of cookies, and health. Stay on your Svelte weight loss journey this Christmas. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring! Opt for clean recipes instead traditional ones and you will be on your way to meeting your weight loss goals.
If you are trying to lose weight, but nothing seems to be working. Contact Svelte Medical Weight Loss. Medical doctors will find a plan of action that suits your body and will have you on your way to a healthier, happier you.