Nutmeg Sugar Cookies.......

Ok, yes, I have been on a very serious note as of late. There will be more of it , so be prepared. But I thought I would give you a break today, and what is better than to take that break than to have a cookie or two?! I adore cookies...ok I adore sweets. Often it is hard for me to eat what I love cause of my teeth, so I look for ways I can get a bit of sweet in and not make my teeth wiggle and throb. Soft cookies is one way. Now I know what you are thinking, "Wasn't one of 2011's challenges for Ruby was to eat better and loose weight? Eating cookies will not get her there!" Well I always play with my cookie recipes, and I make them healthier.

IF you can not read it all...email me and I will be happy to type out the recipe for you.

I know, I hear you, butter, oil and sugar....OH MY! But look at the breakdown per cookie...not the worst for a wonderful cookie. Now the first time I made this, and the one I am sharing today via pictures I only subbed out the butter . I used Bob Greene's Best Life baking sticks. Often I use "I can't believe it is not butter" , I like both equally. Buying the Best Life sticks saved me some money so that is what I bought. It lowered the fat and all the bad things bad about butter ( though I do love the real stuff) and in my opinion the taste was so yummy still I did not notice the substitution. BUT remember if you do this: adjust the salt. The sub's all have sodium and well baking butter is usually salt free. I forgot this time around and had to add more nutmeg to balance it out...but hey I rather liked the end result.

Always gather all your items, saves time.

Other things I have done , not this go around , but it does work and help with calories and fat. Egg substitute for the one egg. It removes only a tiny bit of the richness , a lot of the fat and well the flavor profile only changes a bit.  The color will of course not be as rich looking , but hey if it still tastes good and is better for you....So here is the wet ingredients with a real egg, so nice and rich, even with the baking sticks. The oil, well for a sugar cookie, I left it in. Normally would be toying around with low fat sour cream , and in all other cookies I find all it does is make them more like a muffin top than a cookie...so for a butter sugar cookie, I indulge. I used a clear Mexican vanilla, it would be a bit darker of a batter if I used the typical vanilla that is brown in color.

Yummy! Yep, I am one of those...had to take a tiny bit from the beater to taste. Bad I know...

After I of course mixed together the dry. Now for my salt I use a reduced sodium salt, because sodium bloats me up like a blow fish. Morton makes it and you can find it at most grocery stores. I used white flour, but have made sugar cookies with wheat flour. It does change it up, makes the cookie less flaky and more dense and nutty. However let me say this, in a chocolate chip cookie and most any other cookie that is not a sugar cookie, it works well , and it is better for you.You will see the brown specks , that is fresh grated nutmeg. Nothing like the fresh grated. The recipe called for very little for being called Nutmeg Sugar Cookies. I doubled it, tasted it, then cause of the bit of salt flavor from my boo-boo ( fibro brain fog!) and I put in about 4x the amount...for me it could have had even more, love it. But they were very tasty with what I put in. I would say adjust to taste.  Hubby and I, well we LOVE spicy cookies.

After I added the dry to the wet and mixed this is what I ended up with.....I mixed with a spoon, hate cleaning beaters. Took a bit more work, but not enough that even my fibro shoulders could not handle...so go for it. Unless you have a stand mixer...we sold ours so hand held not quite the same.

It says to keep in the bowl and put in the freezer..I could not fit the bowl in, so I just wrapped it in the plastic wrap and popped it in while I worked on supper and watched the Oprah show. Yep, multi tasking at it's best. After an hour I had time to make the cookies . The recipe calls for 1 inch balls. I did some in that size, and some bigger. I still managed to get nearly the amount of cookies the recipe said it would yield so imagine how many you would get if they were all perfect size. I also added a touch all my own....raw sugar. I rolled the balls in it before putting them on the sheet and squashing them with a criss-cross of the fork. My daughter and I thought it would be grand next time to roll them in cinnamon like a snickerdoodle and THEN then raw sugar....cinnamon is very good for you, helps blood sugar levels, so sounds like a great plan to me!

I use a silpat instead of parchment, the bottoms do not brown as dark so be prepared for that.But saves me money and clean up is a breeze!

Eight to eleven minutes later in the oven (depends on oven and size of cookie) and five minutes on the cookie sheet before being transferred to the rack ( they are soft cookies, bake them a bit longer and they crisp up a bit more, just watch them that they do not bake too long.) and here is the wonderful result.....

Look how beautiful and sparkly they look, all glammed up!

I ate one warm, and then later with a glass of red wine had one at room temp. They are so YUM! Oh and that salt issue, well with the nutmeg and then the raw sugar and paired with red wine....ok HEAVEN! I was one happy lady....OH see this does fit in to my years journey to find happiness!! They were a hit with my hubby and my daughters, Rebecca, the wonderful artist that draws my mini me's for the blog and FB fan page, could barely stop eating them...so I would say they are a hit! I hope you will try them and then let me know what you think! 

“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.”

quoting Robert Fulghum in 1987 at Middlebury College

 

“Dear Lord: The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here's the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won't ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal. In gratitude, I present you this offering of cookies and milk. If you want me to eat them for you, give me no sign. Thy will be done.”  Dan Castellaneta quotes (American Actor and Writer, b.1958)