Healthy Oat and Almond Cookies

I found this recipe in the daily Diabetic Gourmet recipe email and thought it sounded good.  The name on the website says it's a bar, but that's incorrect, the directions are actually for a cookie shape.   I decided to make these because the ingredients list is short, I had all the ingredients, they're healthy, and low-calorie. 

Inspiration

Diabetic Gourmet Magazine Oatmeal Almond Bars (cookies)

I only made two changes to this recipe and one was unintentional.  I had chopped almonds from the bulk bin and I chopped up them finer so they would disburse better in the cookie.  My unintentional change was to use rolled oats, not quick oats.  I only have rolled oats anyway, but I wasn't paying attention to the oats description and used the thicker oats.  The cookies are probably a bit more hearty than intended, but that doesn't matter too much to me.

A couple of the reviewers said they had problems with the cookies falling apart, so I let them cool on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes before moving them to a cooling rack and they all made it unscathed. 

Ingredients

makes 29 cookies

• 1/4 cup chopped almonds
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 cups uncooked quick oats

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

You can toast your almonds in the oven or the microwave.  To toast them in the oven, put them on the cookie sheet and bake them for 8-10 minutes.  You might want to take them out a little before you think they're fully done since they'll brown a little more as they stand.  Plus it's really easy to forget about them and accidentally burn them.  To toast them in the microwave, cook them in one-minute intervals until they are nutty smelling and lightly browned up.

If you want, you can chop up the almonds finer so they disburse more into the cookies.

Then mix up the almonds, honey, egg whites, cinnamon, and salt in a medium-size bowl.  Ensure everything is thoroughly mixed together since when you add the oats, it would be easy for there to be a pocket of dry cinnamon hiding, waiting to ruin a perfectly good bite.

Mixing up everything but the oats.

Fold in the oats and ensure they're all coated.

Using a medium cookie scoop, drop plops onto the cookie sheet.  This is not a cookie that will spread, so feel free to get them pretty close together so you don't have to bake a second pan of them. 

I love my cookie scoop, use it all the time!

Bake for 12 minutes.

Before the oven.

Let cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then move the cookies to a cooling rack. 

After the oven.  Difficult to tell, but slightly golden brown.

Verdict 

Subtle sweetness, all for me. 

I like subtle, not-too-sweet desserts.  Frosting on brownies is weird, seems like overkill.  I want cake and cupcakes with either no frosting or really light whipped cream frostings.  I prefer plain cake doughnuts, no icing, no filling, nothing.   Plus I love oats.  So I found these lightly-sweetened, touch of cinnamon-and-honey oat cookies to be great.  The little bit of nuttiness is really nice.

Sonny D ate a couple of these cookies, but later when I offered one, he turned me down.  Husband Jeff doesn't like my un-sweet, healthy cookies, he'd rather have a grocery store sheet cake with loads of that Crisco frosting.  So all of these cookies ended up being only for me, which I didn't mind other than it makes a lot of cookies for one person to eat.

Some chopped up dried cranberries would be really good in this, along with some chopped up chocolate bits. 

This would also make a good quick granola recipe.  If you want to do that, I would spread out clumps on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake a little longer, maybe 15-18 minutes.  Definitely check them though to ensure they don't get too dark, but you want to dry it out more than a cookie.