Like I mentioned earlier this week in my post, I’m a Loser Baby!, I am on a reduced calorie “diet”. (Not really a diet, as I can eat whatever I want within my calorie limit.) The hardest part of eating this way has been giving up my baking addiction. Baking is serious therapy for me. I used to bake a treat at least once a week, and typically made some type of homemade bread as well. I missed my time in the kitchen, and knew I had to find a few recipes that fit in our eating plan, or I just might go nuts. I decided to play with my oatmeal cookie recipe….and it worked!

This recipe makes a dozen cookies. I found that only making a dozen really helps out with temptation! There are five cookie eaters at my house, so I only got the chance to eat two cookies, rather than…um….ten? These were VERY good, moist, and didn’t taste like a “healthy” cookie. My kids LOVED them, and they satisfied the cookie craving my husband and I had been having.

Each cookie had 125 calories. (You could technically make more cookies and lower the calorie count, but I’ve found that when I make smaller cookies, I just end up having two or three of them…I would rather have one regular sized cookie.) I took off about 50 calories per cookie by making them the “healthy” way. (I put healthy in quotations, just because…it’s still a cookie, and not a bag of carrot sticks. However ,it is a better alternative to a traditional cookie or other packaged snack cake.)

Here is what you’ll need to make my healthy oatmeal-apple cookies!

Ingredients

4 T butter or margarine

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t cinnamon

1 t vanilla

1/4 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 egg

1 1/2 c oats

1/2 c whole wheat flour ( I was worried about this, but you couldn’t tell I used WW flour instead of AP flour!)

To Prepare

1. Cream together the butter and the applesauce. (It won’t mix super well, but that’s okay.)

2. Add in the sugars, and mix. (The applesauce will start to incorporate when you add the sugar.)

3. Add in the baking soda, cinnamon, vanilla, baking powder, egg, and salt. Mix well.

4. Stir in the oats and flour.

5. Drop by rounded spoonful (I use my Pampered Chef cookie scoop), onto a cookie sheet.

6. Bake at 350 for about 7-8 minutes. (WATCH your cookies!! I will say it every time, but a cookie shouldn’t crunch unless it is an Oreo! Underbake your cookies just a tad, and let them finish cooking on the pan out of the oven!)

7. Enjoy your delicious and healthier alternative to a traditionally made oatmeal cookie!You will LOVE these! The applesauce really prevents these cookies from drying out!