Healthy Bakes! Banana-Oatmeal-Honey Cookies

I'm generally a vegetarian, but I'm currently vegan for a while. I will be for roughly another month or so. I can't stop harping to people about the great results I've had so far, but I think I'll spare you all the lecture for now. :D

But ya, I do miss having some tasty treats around and I haven't been tasting anything that I baked (My husband is my taster for now, don't worry, you're not the guinea pigs!). So when I happened to chance upon this nice, harmless looking recipe, I thought why not! I decided to bake these for myself and thus started my tryst with Vegan Baking. So these are no sugar, no fat and no egg cookies!

If you're thinking about delectable, oh-so-light, melt-in-the-mouth cookies, let me stop you right there. These are anything but that! There is nothing feminine about these bakes, and when I first got them out of the oven, I couldn't help but be reminded of Ross Geller and his "Butch, Manly cookies... with Chunks!" Lol! (You can watch that bit: here.)

Nevertheless, as they say looks can be deceiving. The texture of these cookies is rather soft and cake-like.

A Healthy Treat ~ Banana-Oatmeal-Honey Cookies & Mango Flavored Soy Milk

It takes a while of getting used to the texture. They are insanely soft while hot, and proceed to harden a bit, but do not take the form of a regular cookie. So be prepared to expect that.

What I like about these?

• They smell good.
• They taste sweet and good.
• They are not addictive. I bet no one can have more than one. (No, really!)
• They are amazing hunger-killers. And also shush those sugar cravings away pretty well.

Hence, the perfect kind of food to have around when you're on a diet.

I found this recipe at FatFree Vegan Kitchen, and did a slight variation.

This recipe was exciting for me because it was my first egg-less one! I used Flaxseed as an egg substitute, it turned out pretty okay. I was able to find these at an Ayurvedic store near my place. Apparently these are used in fat-loss therapy. Pretty healthy and a good source of Omega-3. That's what the guy at the store told me.

Flaxseed. a.k.a Hindi: Alsi, Tamil: Ali Vidai, Telugu: Avise Ginjalu, Kannada: Agasi, Malayalam: Cheruchana Vithu, Oriya: Pesi, Bengali: Tishi, Marathi: Jawas.

Flaxseed

Okay now, enough rambling. On to the recipe!



RECIPE ~ Banana-Honey-Oatmeal Cookies ~ Makes 15 to 18 cookies


Ingredients

• Quick or Regular Oats - 1 cup
• Whole Wheat Flour - 1 cup
• Raisins - 1/4 cup
• Honey - 1/2 cup
• Banana (mashed) - 1
• Flaxseed (ground to a powder) - 2 Tsp
• Water - 2 Tbsp
• Cinnamon (powdered) - 1 Tsp
• Vanilla Essence/Extract - 1/2 Tsp
• Baking powder - 1/2 Tsp
• Baking Soda - 1/2 Tsp
• Salt - 1/2 Tsp
• Lemon Juice - 1/2 Tsp (optional)

Note: You can use maple syrup instead of honey. That's what the original calls for, but all I could find nearby was 2% maple syrup that had more of High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. Not very healthy, I think.
Banana doesn't necessarily need to be mashed throughly. It's up to you.
I did not use the lemon juice.

Utensils & Bakeware

• Mixing Bowls and Spoon
• Cookie Sheets or Baking Trays provided with Oven
• OTG/Convection Oven - Regular or Microwave
• Cooling Rack or Tray

Procedure

• Prepare cookie sheets by greasing with cooking oil or spray.
• Soak the flaxseed powder in the water for about 20 minutes. It would turn thick and slimy to touch. Sort of like egg-whites.
• In a mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking pwd, soda, salt and raisins) and mix well with a spoon.
• To the soaked flaxseed paste, add the wet ingredients (honey, mashed banana, vanilla) and mix.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until completely incorporated. Do not over-mix.
• Drop chunks of the batter onto the cookie sheet and flatten with a spoon. Well I confess, the spoon was not easy, so I used my hand.

Baking Instructions

• Preheat Oven to 190C/375F for 10 minutes.
• Bake at 190C/375F for 10-15 minutes, until bottom and sides are lightly brown.
• Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes.
• Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. But you can eat them hot too, if you like.

Here's a slideshow of the in-between stages!

I hope you get around to making these. Remember, these are not delectable or addictive. But really good for diet food.

As always, I'm happy to hear from you :-)