annehart

Photo and book by Anne Hart.

Baking healthier cookies/brownies:

For those on low-fat diets: There's no need to grease your cookie pan. Just line it with a coat of raw oat meal and put your cookie dough over the oat meal. You also can dust with cinnamon on top of the oatmeal if desired.

When I make cookie dough, I mix a cup of amaranth flour, a half cup of oat bran, 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal (if you're not adding egg whites), and liquid such as almond milk to form a paste. I add raisins, goji berries, chopped prunes, and chopped apples to sweeten the dough instead of adding sugar or fats/oil.

If you're not vegan, you can add 3 egg whites to the dough instead of the flaxseed meal or use both the 3 egg whites and the 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal . If you're vegan substitute 3 tablespoons of flax seed for the 3 egg whites. Whichever you choose, you'll only be using a total of 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal in this recipe.

Then I bake until the cookies or brownies are firm to the touch and are no long too moist inside. My oven at 350 F. degrees requires a hour of baking. Your time baking may be different. In summer I use a solar oven and leave the dough in the solar oven twice as long until the cookies are firm to the touch. For those not on a very low fat diet, you also can add chopped walnuts or almonds:

Here’s the recipe for “nutballs” cookies made from nuts, dried fruit, and oat meal.

1 cup of almonds, grinded up
1 cup of walnuts, grinded up
1 cup of dried fruit cut up in little pieces (such as dates, figs, raisins, cherries, nectarines, any dried fruit).
1 cup of raw oat meal
1 cup of raw oat bran

Mix everything together and add a little water or milk. Form into balls. Put in refrigerator for 2 hours and eat when balls are set in refrigerator and you can handle them without them falling apart. They would look like meat balls. The entire video I made on making this cookie from raw food also is on YouTube (How to make raw, vegan nut balls with seeds, dried fruits, a banana, nuts, and oats).