Like so many of us, I am trying to be healthier these days, so these coconut cookies with carrots fit right into my new eating plan.
I don’t deny myself a treat if I really want one, BUT I do try to make that treat a little healthier than my previous choices might have been. That’s why these cookies work for me. They are lovely tasting treat, but much healthier than reaching for a bag of factory made chocolate cookies with icing in the middle – you know the ones I mean.
So give these little gems a try and treat yourself to a less guilty pleasure – a coconut cookie recipe with veggies in them! Enjoy.
Make Healthier Cookies
This recipe is relatively low in sugar to begin with so that’s great. Most of us eat too much sugar in our diets to begin with. I have included it in our list of diabetic ingredients because it doesn’t have too much sugar, only has 11 grams of carbohydrates per cookie, which isn’t too bad and is full of healthy ingredients. You can make it even healthier by replacing the sugar with an equivalent amount of stevia or coconut sugar, both of which are much easier on blood sugar.
I love the fact that cookies can have vegetables in them. What better way to get kids (and adults too) to eat more vegetables. And they won’t even know it if you grate them finely.
Adding the nuts to these cookies really ups the nutritional value. Nuts are so healthy for us. I try to incorporate them into as many recipes as I can.
To make these cookies even healthier, replace 1/2 or all of the white all purpose flour with 100% whole what flour. If you sift the whole wheat flour once or twice to get out the larger pieces of bran, it bakes up as nicely as white flour for all except the lightest baking recipes. It would work out perfectly for these coconut cookies.
I always use real butter, rather than margarine in my cooking and baking. Not only does it taste a lot better (no matter what the margarine advertisers try to tell us), it’s actually healthier too. Real butter has more nutrients than margarine and doesn’t contain all of the additives used to process margarine, so don’t be afraid to go back to butter.
Carrot and Coconut Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 cup carrots, shredded
- 1/2 cup coconut, shredded
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Blend the butter with the brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg. Stir in the vanilla, carrot and the shredded coconut. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop large spoonfuls of dough onto the baking sheets. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until the cookies are browned.
Notes
- Grate the carrots coarsely for a chunkier cookie or use a fine grater for a "cakier" cookie.
- Add 3/4 cup raisins and 3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts to the dry ingredients right after you have mixed them together.
- These cookies are relatively healthy, with shredded carrots and coconut in them. The whole recipe has only 1/2 cup of brown sugar. You can gradually cut that down a bit too. I try to cut the sugar in recipes bit by bit until the people eating them get used to the lower sugar content. With some recipes you can almost omit the sugar after you get used to it.
Nutrition
Makes 18 cookies.
Look here for another recipe for coconut cookies. These have Macadamia nuts and a hint of orange.
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