Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Low Sugar Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

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Low Sugar Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies and my Mother’s Day flowers!

Low Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

About the time I think I’ve cut the sugar in every recipe that would possibly work, I find another that works just as well.

Do you remember my Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies? One cup peanut butter, one cup sugar, one egg. They’re delicious. They’re naturally gluten free so I can make them for my GF friends. They’re incredibly easy. And they have a very high sugar content.

I thought surely cutting the sugar in that recipe would mess up the consistency and turn out weird cookies – if they even turned out cookies at all. I am so happy to say, “I was wrong.”

The only thing that didn’t work when I cut the sugar in this recipe is that the dough didn’t allow me to do the cute little criss-cross fork squish thing. The dough was too sticky. Thankfully, life goes on and we’re all grown up enough to eat our peanut butter cookies without fork-squishing them, right? Thank goodness.

Low Sugar Flourless Peanut Butter CookiesYum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Low Sugar Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
 
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Serves: 20ish
Ingredients
  • 2 cups natural peanut butter
  • ⅓ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • 1 egg
Instructions
  1. Mix the ingredients together until smooth.
  2. Use a small or medium scoop to place dough balls on a cookie sheet, about two inches apart.
  3. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
  4. Allow them to sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing them to cool on a rack.

Get my Homemade Natural Peanut Butter Recipe here.

Low Sugar Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

Matt and I are totally good with barely sweet treats. But the boys? Well, they’re a little more particular. Therefore, my kids are always the true testers for whether or not one of my Low Sugar Treats actually tastes good to other people.

I always hesitate to say these are low sugar, come try them because sometimes that makes the boys unsure from the get-go. But there I was, standing in the kitchen eating a peanut butter cookie. This made the boys suspicious. If Mom is eating it, it must be low sugar.

All that to say: These cookies smelled really good, which made my boys want some. Then they saw me eating them, which made them not so sure. I insisted they try a bite because I thought they were so good I could hardly stand it, and I knew they would like them once they tried.

What did they think?

Well, let’s just say that I had to stop them from finishing the entire batch in one sitting, and we all started shaking our heads once again at Betty Crocker for making us all think we needed eighty cups of sugar in cookie recipes just to make them taste good. C’mon, Betty.

You’ll want to look through all of our tried and true Low Sugar Recipes here. It is amazing how much sugar you can cut out of treats and still make them taste delicious! These Peanut Butter Cookies went from 2 cups down to 1/3 cup of sugar – and they are amazing.

Need more Low Sugar Cookie Recipes?

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Low Sugar Butterscotch Bars

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It’s a happy day. Gather ’round, my friends. I’ll share the secret of how we can remake a Heavenly Homemaker’s classic recipe, Butterscotch Bars, into Low Sugar Butterscotch Bars.

butterscotch bars 1

We have Colleen to thank for this. She’s the one who emailed me after I shared my Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookie recipe, asking how I thought my Butterscotch Bars would turn out if we cut the sugar.

I wasn’t confident. While I’ve found that many recipes work amazingly well when we cut the sugar, the two I felt might have to stay sugar-full were the Butterscotch Bars and Chocolate Fudge Brownies.

But you never know until you try, right? Last week I shared that indeed, we can make Low Sugar Chocolate Brownies – proving myself wrong that it just wasn’t possible. Today I’m sharing that sugar in the Butterscotch Bars can be cut too! Boom!

Low Sugar Butterscotch BarsYum

Low Sugar Butterscotch Bars
 
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Serves: 15 bars
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour (regular white whole wheat flour works too)
Instructions
  1. Cream melted butter and sucanat together.
  2. Add eggs and vanilla.
  3. Stir in flour and mix well.
  4. Spread mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  5. Bake in a 350° oven for 20 minutes.

Low Sugar Butterscotch Bars

Confession: I love these low sugar bars. I actually find that they are still almost too sweet for me so I can only have a tiny sliver. My family thinks they’re good. But when I made a pan of Butterscotch Bars for a houseful of college kids last week, I made the full sugar version.

If you’re going for a treat that’s rich and gooey – you’ll want to make the regular 2-cups of sugar (gag me) Butterscotch Bars. But if you want a treat that is lightly sweetened and deliciously tasty (just not ooey gooey super sweet) – this Low Sugar Butterscotch Bar recipe is what you want!

Find more Low Sugar Treats here. You guys – the list is getting long!! I’m loving this!

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Rich Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies (Low Sugar!)

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These Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies are low in sugar. Can you believe it?

Low Sugar Fudge Brownie

Sugar became my enemy about the time I turned 39. I feel absolutely awful – for hours or even days – if I eat sugary treats. Therefore I haven’t been able to eat a regular brownie for about three years.

Avoiding desserts hasn’t been hard for me because a cookie is not even worth a migraine. Sometimes just the smell of sweets turns my stomach, thinking of how terrible I’ll feel if I eat them. So will power? That has nothing to do with my “I’ll pass on the dessert, thanks.” Sweets literally make me sick. I really do not want them.

You know this is saying something since I’m the one who used to eat sugar with my sugar and wash it down with a fizzy glass full of sugar (and then have seconds).

Perhaps I consumed a lifetime quota of sugar by the time I was 39. More likely I think this is a result of some major cleansing and heavy metal detox I’ve been doing with my natural doctor during the past few years. My body is at a point of only wanting the good stuff. Okay then. This is probably the best side effect ever.

Having said all that, I do really appreciate a treat that is lightly sweetened. My body can handle these in moderation, and experimenting with recipes to drastically cut the sugar has been really fun. As you know from reading any of my recent low-sugar recipes – I’m learning that treats and dessert really do taste wonderful even when the sugar content has been cut in a huge way.

This, of course, has been greatly beneficial for our entire family (and now for yours!). I’ve wanted for so long to cut down on our sugar intake. It’s just hard since sugar tastes so doggone good.

Thorough research has taught me that high quality fats like coconut oil, butter, and palm oil are not our enemy when it comes to good health. SUGAR IS THE ENEMY. I should probably write an entire post about this. (Oh wait. I just did.) But go read it later because, my friends, I have a Low Sugar Brownie Recipe and I’m not afraid to eat it. This is my most exciting discovery in all my low-sugar recipe experimentation. We can cut the sugar in brownies!!!!

Someone hold me back. Not from eating too many. Just from SCREAMING TOO LOUDLY. This is just exciting. You’ll be screaming too. I support your decision to scream. (Outside. While we’re inside we use our inside voices.)

Rich Dark Chocolate Fudge BrowniesYum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Rich Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies (Low Sugar!)
 
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Serves: 12-15
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ½ cup sucanat or brown sugar (I use just under ½ cup, actually)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour
Instructions
  1. Mix together melted butter, cocoa, and sugar.
  2. Add eggs and vanilla, stirring well.
  3. Mix in flour until well combined.
  4. Spread into a 9x9 inch baking dish or a 9 inch pie dish.
  5. Bake in a 350° oven for 20 minutes.
  6. Allow brownies to cool before cutting them (good luck).

Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies {Low Sugar}

These bake up a little different from “full sugar” brownies. You may notice that the butter sizzles on the top of these while they’re baking. Don’t worry a bit. Take them out of the oven after 20 minutes of baking and let them sit for a few minutes. The butter settles in and turns your brownies fudgy and moist.

Because the sugar is cut down in this recipe, you’ll find that these taste more like dark chocolate. All of my kids ate them without complaint because these are still plenty sweet. (But not so sweet that I can’t have a small piece, so yay!)

Onward we go, testing out more low sugar recipes! How fun is this?!

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Low Sugar Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce (3 Ingredients!)

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Dairy free chocolate sauce….the new way to top a waffle.

Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce

We sure do eat a lot of cream cheese around our house.

This has nothing to do with the recipe I’m about to share with you – except that it is my way of saying, “We definitely aren’t a dairy-free family.”

Why a Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce then?

  • Because coconut milk is nourishing and I like to use it in addition to cow milk as a way to give my family a variety of nutrients.
  • Because I love having recipes on hand that I can use to bless our friends who can’t eat dairy.
  • Because this Chocolate Sauce is rockin’ and I can actually eat it because it is low in sugar.

You pretty much can’t mess up this recipe. Go ahead. Try. Not that you would. (I mean, I can sometimes mess up a recipe without even trying, say…when I’m trying to talk and cook at the same time??)

But this recipe is really fool-proof and adaptable. You can make it a little sweeter if you like. You can keep the sugar low and enjoy this as a “dark chocolate” sauce. You can add a splash of vanilla extract or mint extract.

Oh my goodness, you could stir in some peanut butter! I just thought of that, will try it, and get back to you. You’ve gotta love it when a delicious brainstorm comes in the middle of writing a sentence.

How to use your Low Sugar Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce

  • We love it on fresh strawberries, bananas, blueberries, or raspberries.
  • Often we use it as an apple dip.
  • Try stirring it into a cup of hot coffee. Yup.
  • Instead of maple syrup, spread this sauce over your pancakes or waffles.
  • Hello. Just eat it on a spoon.
  • You can drizzle this on ice cream, but if you do have to eat dairy free, you’d also have to make or find dairy free ice cream (this was obvious but still worth mentioning)

Low Sugar Dairy Free Chocolate SauceYum

Low Sugar Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce
 
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Ingredients
  • 13.5 ounce can of full fat, unsweetened coconut milk
  • ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ¼ - ½ cup sweetener (honey, sucanat, or brown sugar)
Instructions
  1. Mix ingredients in a small saucepan, cooking and stirring on medium heat until well combined.
  2. Serve warm or cold.
  3. Store this sauce in a covered container in the refrigerator, rewarming on the stove-top as needed. It will keep for up to a month in the fridge.

Low Sugar Dairy Free Chocolate Sauce

This sauce just takes a few minutes to whip up and it seriously tastes like a gourmet treat.

Need Coconut Milk?

I typically purchase cans of coconut milk in bulk online. Some of my favorite resources are:

Want the Dairy-Full version? You’ll find one here. Be warned: it’s super full of sugar. I should play with that and see how we can reduce it!

Can you think of other great ways to eat this sauce? 

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Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies

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I didn’t think I could make it happen. Why did I doubt? Cutting down the sugar in chocolate cookies is entirely possible and now we can all enjoy Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies!

low sugar chocolate cookies

Now, it doesn’t take much for me to think a treat is “plenty sweet” when, according to my boys, it is only “barely sweet” or “not even sweet.” But who was I to argue when Malachi grabbed the spoon to lick it off before it went into the dishwasher? I mean, it did look lickable.

Then when the cookies were done baking and all the boys wanted to try one, who was I to argue? I warned them. I told them the cookies might have more of a dark chocolate taste as opposed to a super sweet chocolate cookie they might be expecting.

You should have heard Malachi when he tried his first cookie. Actually, maybe you did. He was pretty loud. “Mmmm! Mom, these are so good! They taste like a brownie!” The brothers agreed.

Of course then I assumed maybe they’d be too sweet for me. I mean, if my boys thought they were great, that just might mean I’d go straight from one bite to migraine in a matter of minutes. Before trying one myself, I double checked, “Are they going to be too sweet for me? Are you sure I can eat these?” They assured me that the cookies weren’t too sweet, they just tasted good.

They were right.

This is how we know we have a winning recipe: when all the people eating it don’t realize or care that the sugar has been cut drastically and they just happily eat all the cookies like it’s just a “normal” treat.

As always I come back to the question: WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SUGAR IN ALL THE RECIPES???

Not only do we not need it, we don’t even need it. What I mean is: Our bodies don’t need the sugar overload AND treats don’t need as much sugar as we think they need in order to taste good. I’m learning that 1/2 cup of sugar is enough when a recipe calls for 1 1/2 or 2 cups. That’s a drastic cut in sugar without compromising taste.

This calls for a cup of coffee. What better way to celebrate the eating of Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies?

Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge CookiesYum

Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies
 
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Serves: 24-30
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2⅓ cups whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter, sucanat, and cocoa powder.
  2. Add eggs, baking powder, and vanilla, mixing well.
  3. Mix in flour until your dough has reached a nice consistency (moist but not runny).
  4. If you've added all the flour and the dough is still too runny, add a little more or chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.
  5. Scoop 1" sized cookie dough balls onto a cookie sheet.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for about 10 minutes.

Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies

Now of course you’ll want our other Low Sugar Cookie recipes:

You should also be very excited because I don’t think it will be difficult at all to tweak this a little bit and make Low Sugar Brownies. You can bet I’ll be working on that after these cookies are gone from my house which will likely be sometime in the next couple of minutes.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake Parfaits

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chocolate cheesecake parfait

There is a really weird thing about my dad.

No, no – hear me out. I don’t mean weird like weird. Actually though, if you think about it we all have our own variety of weirdness, do we not? Oh, we do. We are who we are and we think that anyone who isn’t like us is weird. News flash: We are all weird. Weirdo.

So about my dad. He’s super picky about all things fruits and vegetables. He only likes canned green beans, canned peaches in corn syrup, and iceberg lettuce. When he comes to visit and I offer beautiful trays of fresh fruit and steaming bowls of vegetables and he’s like, “What is this broccoli stuff? Hmm, peaches with fuzz. You mean people actually eat asparagus?”

And when it comes to strawberries? I can’t even believe I’m related to him because he will not touch a strawberry. He says it’s the seeds. Oh but he is missing out on one of the finest pleasures of this life on earth.

None of this in and of itself is weird. The weird part is that somehow in a conversation about what we do and not not like, when the subject of beets came up, my dad said, “Beets? Oh, I like beets.”

What?!? He won’t eat a fresh strawberry, a peach off a tree, or about fifty other fruit and vegetable options – but he’ll eat a beet? So weird.

I don’t even like beets. I think they taste like dirt. (Not that I’ve actually eaten dirt.) I’ve tried but I just can’t like them. See, and this makes me weird to those of you who do like beets. I told you we are all weird.

Since my dad won’t eat strawberries, I will continue to eat his share and my share plus all the other strawberries I can get my hands on. They are my favorite.

Our family recently combined two of our favorite recipe ideas: Low Sugar Strawberry Cheesecake Parfaits with Chocolate Whipped Cream. The result is a delicious Chocolate Cheesecake Parfait. Of course, I used strawberries with the chocolate cheesecake to make these. But you could use blueberries, bananas, and whatever other fruit you might like.

Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake Strawberry ParfaitsYum

5.0 from 2 reviews
Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake Strawberry Parfaits
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 2½ cups heavy whipping cream
  • 8 ounces softened cream cheese
  • 3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 Tablespoon real maple syrup
  • Liquid stevia to taste (I use about 20 drops) (Use a few Tablespoons of sugar if you prefer.)
  • 1 -2 pounds fresh, sliced strawberries
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients (minus the strawberries) into a blender.
  2. Whip until smooth and creamy.
  3. Spoon mixture into bowls or cups – layering them with sliced strawberries.

Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake Parfait

If you have a tried and true you will like beets if you eat them this way recipe, please do let me know. Otherwise, I’ll stick with the other dozens of fruit and vegetable options I do like and I’ll eat strawberries like there’s no tomorrow. Never forget that you’re weird and I’m weird and everyone is weird.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easy Low Sugar Key Lime Melt-Away Cookies

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I actually have no idea what makes something key lime rather than simply lime. I’d look it up, but there are fresh lime cookies to eat and also there is a lot of laundry to do since we have been gone all weekend. I would have just called these lime cookies, but key lime sounds more exciting.

Key Lime Cookies

Oh wait. I just looked it up. Did you know there are actually Key Limes? You probably did, so before you tease you have to remember that I am from Nebraska where there are no lime trees. Nebraska limes grow on trucks and in grocery stores.

Key limes are apparently great for cooking and baking because they are extra juicy and full of aroma and flavor. I will admit that I don’t know what kind of limes I used in these cookies. Therefore, maybe we should call these Easy Low Sugar On-Sale Lime Melt Away Cookies?

Either way, add these cookies to the collection of Low Sugar Cookies we’ve been enjoying here. These cookies are so much fun since all we have to do is use the base recipe, then add different flavors! Lime is just as amazing as the others.

Want to try the other varieties of these cookies?

Easy Low Sugar Key Lime Melt-Away CookiesYum

4.0 from 1 reviews
Easy Low Sugar Key Lime Melt-Away Cookies
 
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Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • The juice of two limes
  • grated lime rind
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, lime juice, and baking powder.
  3. Grate lime rind into the mix for extra flavor.
  4. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  5. Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Easy Low Sugar Key Lime Melt-Away Cookies

If you’d like to learn a cool trick to make your lime squeezing easier, grab your limes and some tongs and read this handy information.

Do you live in an area where limes grow in your backyard? If so, I’m happy for you and not even jealous. After all, I live in a state where the wind blows so hard we don’t have to bother fixing our hair. Now who’s jealous?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

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orange sugar cookies

In case by now you’re wondering if I’m obsessed with creating these Low Sugar Melt-Away Cookie varieties, the answer is obvious that of course I am obsessed. After two attempts at creating this here orange flavored variety, I have definitely decided that of all the flavors – orange is my new favorite.

Why two attempts, you ask? Oh well. I just burned the first batch, that’s all. Guys, it is so weird what happens to cookies when you put them in the oven, walk away, and then forget that there is actual life going on outside your office door. So weird. Someone should have warned me about this. We can’t even leave cookies unattended in a 350° oven for 27 minutes. Did you know that???

Set a timer much, Laura?

You know what? Just…I know, okay? I should have set a timer. I used to have one of those clicky, clicky, clicky timers but it got dropped four too many times so its spinner stopped spinning. Then Matt got me a digital timer that was persnickety and sometimes decided to shut itself off because it was selfish and couldn’t care less about the company coming over to eat in exactly 52 minutes. After a few months of this behavior, I declared it to be faulty and went to the store to purchase another one just like it. It, however, had the same exact issues as its brother and that is what tipped me off that maybe that brand couldn’t be trusted.

After that, I decided I could just use the timer app on my phone. This is a great idea except that it takes so many difficult and tedious steps to get to the point of actually setting the timer (find phone, turn phone on, unlock screen, find timer app, open timer app, think about how much time has elapsed since I started this whole process so I can figure out how long to set the timer at this point, so on and so forth). Also, I really hate to touch my phone when I have egg white on my fingers.

I think you can all see now how challenging it has been to accurately time my baked goods. I have mostly resorted to trusting my nose to be my timer. Typically, cookies and casseroles smell “just right” when they are ready to come out of the oven. What more do I need?

Oh yeah, just someone to remind me that I am actually baking cookies in the first place.

So the first batch burned. They were edible, just really, really crispy and not at all picture worthy. Over the weekend, I tried again. Oh my goodness, I will (go to the trouble to) set a timer from now on. It is worth it to pull the perfect cookies out of the oven when they are perfectly perfect in every way.

Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies
 
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Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • The juice of one medium-sized orange
  • grated orange rind
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, orange juice, and baking powder.
  3. Grate orange rind into the mix for extra flavor.
  4. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  5. Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

grate orange rind

In other scatterbrained related news – the second time I made these cookies, I was talking to a friend and didn’t realize until later (like 9 hours later) that I hadn’t put eggs into the mixing bowl. These still turned out to be my favorite cookies. So eggs in this recipe? Take ’em or leave ’em. These turn out fine either way. This is further proof that I can’t talk and cook at the same time. Like you needed more proof.

Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

Want to try the other varieties of these cookies?

Hey, just curious. What kind of timer do you use??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pyrex Storage Set Deal Alert!!

Christine emailed to tell me of this great deal on a 10-Piece Pyrex Storage Set. Get the entire set right now for just $12.63. No guarantees on how long this price will last. I have these, love them, and use them all the time!!

pyrex

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easy Low Sugar Almond Melt-Away Cookies

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This Almond Melt-Away Cookies recipe is a direct result of me sharing my Low Sugar Lemon Melt-Away Cookies and several of you saying, “Sounds good! I think almond extract would be a great idea to try in these cookies too!”

Easy Almond Cookies

Thanksgiving and Christmas happened in the meantime – so three months later, it took me five minutes to try your idea. No sense rushing into anything. 

I was also waiting to see how my attempt at Homemade Almond Extract would turn out. What a bummer. Making Homemade Vanilla Extract is a total no-brainer so I was hoping almond extract would be the same. I soaked the nuts in vodka as recommended by several sites, then I even simmered off some of the alcohol – but it didn’t turn out extract like I’m used to using. Then I looked at the ingredients on my purchased extract and there is “almond oil” included. Is that what gives my purchased extract the yummy smell and flavor? If any of you have successfully made Almond Extract, will you please share all your secrets?!

In the meantime, taking my basic Easy {Low} Sugar Cookie recipe and adding different flavors has been super simple and yummy. Here’s a quick link list for you:

Low Sugar Almond Melt-Away Cookies

Yum

Easy Low Sugar Almond Melt-Away Cookies
 
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Author:
Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 teaspoons almond extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, extracts, and baking powder.
  3. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  4. Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
  5. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Low Sugar Almond Melt-Away Cookies

I learned on accident that you can forget the eggs in these cookie recipes and while they are a bit more crumbly, they are still great! Just a little bonus for those of you who have to avoid eggs.

I love it when I can cut the sugar so drastically in a recipe and my kids can’t tell a difference. These are perfectly sweetened and the almond extract makes them taste fancy with no additional effort!

I should also mention that these lightly sweetened cookies taste amazing with a steamy cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk. Ah, life’s simple pleasures. :)

I’d love any other flavor suggestions to try with these cookies. And if you’re an almond extract maker, please tell me how you do it!!

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Low Sugar Frosted Christmas Cookies

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Some might say that Christmas desserts are treats that should not be messed with. Perhaps whole wheat flour does not belong in a Christmas cookie. Maybe “low sugar” should not be included in a Christmas cookie title. It’s a treat, right? Can’t we just leave it well enough alone?

Sure.

But the more I experiment with cutting down the sweetener in my baked goods, the more I’m discovering that treats still taste like treats even with the sugar cut in half or more.

Low Sugar Frosted Sugar Cookies

 

Wait. I don’t know how to write that. “…with the sugar cut in half or more.” Or should it be “…with the sugar cut in half or less.” I’m talking about cutting out even more than half of the originally called for sugar. Less sugar. Cut it by more than half, so that it’s even less. That is what I’m trying to say. Sometimes writing good sentences is so hard. Who decided that fractions would be smaller every time their bottom number gets bigger? Do you know how hard it is to explain to a small child that 1/8 is bigger than 1/16?? It’s the fraction inventors that are making my sentence writing so complicated right now.

Just for that, I’m not giving the fraction people any of my cookies. They can figure out their own half or more or less sugar fraction in their own cookie recipes. Merry Christmas, fraction people.

Well, there’s no good way to segue after this slightly embarrassing but mostly justified outburst. All any of us really needs to know is that we can cut the sweetener in most baked good recipes and not taste the difference. Truly this sugar cookie is still so sweet I can barely eat it. My kids – who love sugar-covered-sugar just like all the other kids – cannot tell that these cookies are low in sugar. I daresay that if we left these on a plate for Santa, he’d be like, “Wow, these are the best cookies I’ve had all night, but without the sugar crash. This mother must have used half or more (or less) of the sugar called for in the recipe.”

Good ol’ Santa. He totally gets it.

Low Sugar Christmas Cookies (That Don't Taste Low Sugar)Low Sugar Christmas Cookies

Low Sugar Christmas Sugar Cookies
 
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Author:
Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3½ cups of whole wheat flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.
  3. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  4. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour.
  5. Roll chilled dough on a well-floured surface and thin or thick as you like.
  6. Cut with cookie cutters and place them about a half inch apart on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake in a 350° oven for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
  8. Makes 20-30 cookies depending on the thickness and size.

If you’d like to frost your cookies but keep them low sugar, I recommend this stevia sweetened frosting.

Stevia Sweetened Cream Cheese FrostingYum

8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Liquid stevia to taste (I use 2 droppers full)

Whip ingredients together until smooth. Frost cookies just before serving.

This frosting is not like regular powdered sugar icing. It’s delicious on these cookies, but does not harden or hold up well for the long term. I recommend only frosting a few cookies at a time, as needed. I use the term “as needed” loosely because we are talking about cookies here. Although these are low in sugar so the half or more or less sugar fraction does the lessen the guilt.

Take that, fraction people.

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