A Little Bit of Sweet: Carrot Cake Cookies

Finished cookies

I thought that oatmeal raisin cookies sounded good, but a carrot cake cookie won the coin toss because I had a can of carrots in the pantry that I figured I should use.  

 

Inspiration

Oh She Glows Itty Bitty Carrot Cake Cookies

I don't like coconut a whole lot so I replaced it with an equal amount of oats.  I also don't have maple syrup so I replaced it with an equal amount of brown sugar.  I skipped the nuts because I typically don't like nuts in my cookies, and coconut oil.

I figured this would probably need an egg to help hold it together (my typical thought for a cookie recipe without eggs) so I added an egg.

Carrots and plumped up raisins.

Ingredients

makes about 22 smaller cookies

• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (I’m sure other flours would work!)
• 1/2 cup regular oats
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• Pinch of ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 cup canned carrots, mashed
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup raisins, covered in water and cooked in the microwave for 1.5 min. 
• 1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

mashed carrots, raisins, and egg

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

mixed dough

Mix together the dry ingredients in a small bowl (flour through salt).  In a large bowl mix together the wet ingredients (carrots through vanilla).  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix to combine. 

Using a medium cookie scoop, drop them onto the parchment paper and flatten a little since they won't spread out on their own.  Bake for 12 minutes, and then move them to a rack to cool. 

waiting to go into the oven

Verdict

Not much carrot flavor, not really much of a cookie.

These were only ok.   When they first came out of the oven they seemed too gingery, but that went away after a day.  They didn't have much carrot flavor at all, but I attribute that to the canned carrots.  I used the rest of the carrots in my oatmeal for the next two breakfasts and there was barely any flavor at all.

But Sonny D and I ate all of these cookies.  I'm glad it made a small batch though so we didn't have so many to eat.  But at least I felt good about him eating them since they're so healthy.  Probably actually too healthy.  Husband Jeff tried one, but didn't eat any more because he said there was too much ginger.  Yeah, too much ginger and not enough sugar! 

I don't know if I would make these again, I think I would prefer a non-oat version made with freshly grated carrot, no raisins, and cream cheese frosting.