Healthy(ish) Sprouted Wheat Snickerdoodles

I have a picky eater in my house. She's a six year old refuser of many foods. She likes her raw fruits and veggies, I'll give her that, but when it comes to many "normal" foods like cheese, pizza, potatoes (in any form other than chip or fry), and chicken that is not in nugget form, she's a tough one to please.

Well, she actually loves pizza. Cheeseless pizza. With parmesan (because that is the one cheese exception) and sauce only, but only the powdered kind of parmesan... and don't be offering her any  sauce that is not smooth, because she has superhuman texture detection powers. I should tell her that she has those powers. She would think it's cool... but I don't want to encourage it.

 Anyway, you get the point. Over the years, her "selective eating" has morphed in slight ways, sometimes allowing new things into her palate, and rejecting old favorites. The pickiness remains constant.

So, on those school days that she rejects what is being served for hot lunch, I must pack her a healthy cold lunch, lest she starve herself... almost... and come home in starving monster mode (not a good time). This is a challenge, because the girl will not eat a sandwich unless it is crustless and it's contents consist of only Nutella. Sometimes even then, it is rejected, especially if it is cut into the wrong shape, or the bread is not the right texture.

 What is a mom to do? I toss in tons of fresh fruit and veggies, some favorite carbs, and... what else? Last night I was brainstorming, and lamenting that the school was serving tomato soup for lunch, and we had were out of both bread, and Nutella. I needed a replacement. With the high sugar content of Nutella, and the overly processed and preserved ingredients of store bought bread, I figured I may as well just be packing her a cookie. A homemade cookie, with no shady ingredients, and kicked up a health notch by using coconut sugar, which is lower on the glycemic index (no quick sugar high and subsequent crash), and sprouted wheat flour, which is also low GI and higher in absorbable nutrients and digestibility than white or wheat flour that is not sprouted.  Furthermore this cookie should be made with butter (which, if grass-fed, I consider to be a healthy fat) or coconut oil. So I basically needed to make healthy sprouted wheat bread, disguised in cookie form.

This is what I came up with, and because they disappeared so quickly last night and this morning (yes, we all had some for breakfast), I altered the recipe to make a double batch. This recipe was inspired by snickerdoodle recipes on allrecipes, and tweaked to fit our needs. It yields about 4 dozen smallish cookies.

Sprouted Snickerdoodles

• 1 cup butter or coconut oil (I used butter)
• 2 cups coconut sugar or granulated sugar of choice (can be reduced to 1.5 cups)
• 2 eggs (from your backyard chickens, of course)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 
• 3 cups sprouted wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cream of tartar

For rolling the dough in:

• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

Begin by creaming your soft (room temp) butter with your sugar. Try not to do what I did in this picture and add in your egg and vanilla because your room temperature butter was not soft enough to blend. For best results, cream butter and sugar, and then mix in eggs and vanilla until blended.

 Gradually add in your dry ingredients, or, if you're impatient, dump them all in at once and see them form a cloud of flour around you as you're mixing...

The resulting dough will be quite thick, and could potentially cause a strange burning smell to come from your mixer... you may even see bits of dough flying around you.

Don't be like me. Make sure your butter is soft, for easy mixing, and use a nice, big bowl to mix up that dough and catch the fly-aways.

Your dough should be thick enough to roll into little balls, and coat with your sugar/cinnamon mixture. If it's too sticky, you can refrigerate for a while. Set your little cinnamon-sugary dough balls on a baking sheet, and press them down lightly with the bottom of a glass, if you wish.

Bake for 8 minutes in a preheated 375 degree oven. They should come out perfect, or, like this.

 Snickerdoodles are a favorite around here, with their slight crispness on the outside, and soft goodness on the inside.  The best thing about these cookies, other than the fact that they're easy on the tastebuds, is that they are also pretty filling, due to the fact that they are made with sprouted wheat flour.

Some might call it a cookie. I call it breakfast. Or lunch. Or a snack, that is healthier than a nutella sandwich.