Low Sugar Energy Cookies
How to Make High Energy, Low Sugar Cookies: Perfect for packing in a lunch
I don't know about you, but now, only a month into the school year, I've completely lost all the steam I had the first couple weeks of school trying to make healthy, unique lunches everyday. I started out the school year like super mom baking cookies and crackers and creating school lunch bento box works of art and now I'm like; here's some cheddar bunnies, a box of raisins and some apple slices, lunch is served. So, during a cold, rainy day a couple of weeks ago when I was tearing my hair out trying to find something for my toddler and I to do, I got us both busy in the kitchen making a giant batch of low sugar energy cookies. A perfect way to kill two birds with one productive stone. I got a solid hour of tantrum free entertainment for my daughter by having her help me bake the cookies and and then we froze most of them so that all I have to do is pull a half dozen or so of them out of the freezer at the beginning of the week and, viola!, warm fresh baked cookies for every lunch!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup ripe mashed banana
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup butter (softened)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1/4 cup flax seeds
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup dark chocolate chunks or chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a mixer, beat the butter, sugar, banana and syrup together in a large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add to the wet ingredients. Mix until well combined. Add the oats, flax seeds, chocolate and raisins and stir until well combined. Spoon two tablespoons per cookie onto an ungreased cookie sheet, press down with a fork and bake on the middle rack for 9 minutes. Leave on the hot baking sheet for 3-5 minutes before removing and placing on a cooling rack.
Freezer directions: spoon cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, press each cookie down with a fork. Place cookie sheet in freezer for one hour. Remove frozen cookie shaped dough from the baking sheet and put into a ziplock freezer bag. When you are ready to cook, just place them on a cookie sheet and bake them at 350 degrees for 11 minutes. Leave on the hot baking sheet for 3-5 minutes before removing and placing on a cooling rack.
