As part of my quest to find party recipes which are safe for my daughter’s friends who have allergies, I tested this egg-free cookie recipe for a Valentine’s Day party earlier this year and was blown away by how delicious they were! Moist, buttery, and just sweet enough. While not healthy by any stretch, they do contain whole wheat flour (which you would NEVER guess) and a reasonable amount of sugar compared to other sugar cookie recipes. The dough is also so easy to make – you don’t even need an electric mixer! I will admit that cut-outs in general are a bit of a labor of love, with all of the careful rolling and stamping and re-rolling, but these cookies are also fabulous when placed as balls of dough on the cookie sheet, so it’s a really versatile recipe.
In the first picture below I attempted to make pink cookies for that Valentine’s Day party which was not much of a success – I think the dough is too dense to color with a reasonable amount of natural food coloring, so if you want to go the colored route, I’d recommend adding some natural food coloring (e.g., India Tree) to some granulated sugar (just mix it in really well with a fork and let dry completely) and then sprinkle on the cookies before baking. The second picture is from my daughter’s superhero themed birthday party, and I loved how great they look with the stamping cookie cutters!
As a side note, the original recipe is vegan, so if you are looking for a vegan cookie recipe, please link back to Chocolate Covered Katie for the details!
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Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies
adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 (scant) teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milkPreheat oven to 325, and either grease or line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat.
Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate glass bowl or large glass measuring cup, melt the butter in the microwave (or this can be done in a saucepan on the stovetop), and then stir in vanilla and milk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until thoroughly combined. Make sure the dough can be formed into a ball without cracking – if not, add more milk 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing again, until the dough hangs together but is not too wet.
To make cookies, either:
1) Form small balls of dough and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet, or
2) For cut-out cookies, place a piece of parchment paper on the counter and lightly dust with flour. Take another piece of parchment or plastic wrap, place on top of dough, and roll out until it is no more than 1/4 inches thick. Use a cookie cutter to make shapes, and carefully place cut-out cookies 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheet. Keep re-rolling and cutting out dough until you have used as much as you can and then form small balls with the rest, or just make yourself a little cookie dough snack (seriously, no raw eggs and it’s delicious!).
Bake cookies for 9-10 minutes (depending on size). The cookies will look underdone; they will be barely brown on the bottom but if you lift to try to look they will fall apart, so just assume they’re ready when the time is up. Let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a rack to finish cooling completely.
Do ahead: Dough can be refrigerated (overnight) or frozen (for a few days) right on cookie sheet (so make sure you are using a cookie sheet that will fit in your fridge or freezer!) – just add an additional 1-2 minutes onto baking time. Cookies can also be frozen after baking. If you want to refrigerate dough before forming cookies, wrap tightly in plastic and then let sit out at room temperature until soft enough to roll out.
Makes roughly 30 2-inch cookies
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The Simply Wholesome Kitchen 