Culinary

Healthy Whole Wheat Homemade Cookies 🍪🎄🤶

Don’t these look yummy?! They are, especially with a warm cup of coffee or tea. I like to have tea or hot chocolate in the evenings sometimes.☕️

Ingredients

3 cps. All purpose flour (whole wheat or white, I used wheat)

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup white sugar

1 cup or more ;) walnuts, chopped

1/2 tspn baking soda

1 tspn salt

1/2 cup, softened, butter

2-3 tblspns vegetable oil

First, mix the butter (softened, I usually melt it for 20 -30 seconds) and then add both of the sugar ingredients and the eggs all together until you have a smooth mixture.

Well – I actually just mixed everything together all at once! So you can do it that way too.

Mix all the ingredients together!

They won’t be smooth at first. You’re working with bread dough. You don’t want your butter completely melted either, the idea is for the butter to be ‘creamy.’ So don’t completely melt it. You will have to dilute the ingredient combination with water after you put it all in a bowl. I don’t recommend adding more than a cup of water – use your best judgment – also add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil (included in the list of ingredients above). This is how your cookie dough should look after you add the water to smoothen it.

As you can see, I rolled them into balls, each one about half of an inch apart. They should make at least two dozen cookies! It’s such a delicious combo with the sugar, walnuts, and flour, and they turn out great if you make them correctly.

Don’t be afraid to use your hands!!! Clean hands can take you much further than trying to beat the mixture with a machine or even with a spoon. First I used a wooden spoon, the mixture was still pretty powdery and not coming together well. Then I used my hands to mix the batter and roll them into cookie balls.

Put them in the oven at 350 F for at least 10 to 12 minutes. You want to use parchment paper or aluminum foil. If the bottoms or sides are golden brown, then they are done!

Voila! Now you can cut them into shapes. I’ll be honest. Making cookies homemade from flour is not the easiest. But the more used to it you get, the easier it becomes. Again, you can add water to smoothen the batter. Not too much though. Too much water will make them liquidy and they will not form. Here’s some more pics!

Best of luck!🤶

These turned out delicious!🤶🍪☕️🎄

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the books, Not Without God: A Story of Survival and Not Without God: Hope In the Storm. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. Zina’s written several hundred articles and has appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog, and the Southern Writers magazine among other places.

Zina writes on faith and overcoming adversity. She also likes to write about health and science and loves to help others. Zina has created notwithoutgod.net as well as the Not Without God series/brand. She’s written articles for healthcare and she’s the creator/leader of Writing Because I Can’t Not Write – For aspiring and seasoned writers.

Each week she invites one author and hosts free masterminds for the public while showcasing bestsellers and award winners. She also teaches a free Zoom course each week to assist the public with improving their writing. Zina’s been an educator for nearly twenty years and has taught multiple subjects to thousands of students of all ages from many different backgrounds and parts of the world.

She’s been invited to speak at the Harvard University Faculty Club’s Business Expert Forum and holds a B.A. in English with a minor in History from Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Zina says the reason she majored in English was not primarily to teach; it was to write. When Zina is not writing or teaching, she enjoys cooking, listening to music, exercising, or socializing.

Culinary

Homemade Whole Wheat Raisin Cookies!🍪👩‍🍳❤️‍🩹

Last night I made some yummy cookies. As you know, wheat is a much better alternative to white. Wheat bread and wheat rice are better for you in terms of balancing blood sugar. If you’re going to have a grain, it should be wheat or a darker color, such as Rye. Rye bread also is rich in B vitamins (1, 2, and 3).

I will post some pictures below. I also want to share the recipe in case anyone would like to make them. They came out to 25 cookies all together. What’s great about making a large batch of cookies is you can refrigerate them for up to 1 week and then freeze what you have not consumed for 1-3 months.. I like to put each cookie in its own plastic baggy.

Ingredients:

3/4-1cup of unsalted OR salted butter, and partially melt the butter in a pan

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup of packed brown sugar

2 eggs

3 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups of Whole Wheat flour (all purpose flour)

3/4-1 cup of raisins (I used mixed raisins of different kinds)

1/2 tspn of vanilla extract

1/2 tspn salt

1/2 tspn baking soda

AND, this recipe is so easy. STEP 1: basically MIX all ingredients together (in no particular order!). It is fun. Now, there may be excess flour that doesn’t want to mix in. So you will have to add about 1/2 cup to a full cup of water, a little at a time, to smoothen the mixture out.

You want the mixture to have a dough like form but to be smooth enough to scoop onto a cookie sheet. Use parchment paper for best results. Scrape up all the excess flour. You can scoop with a tablespoon, and set the cookies about 1-2 inches apart.

This should come out to 20-25 cookies.

Voila! You have Whole Wheat Raisin cookies! By the way, chopped walnuts would be great to add too but are not necessary. It’s optional. Some people like to add 1 cup of uncooked cooking oats. Oats are also great for helping to regulate blood sugar!

Bake at 375-400 F. You may have to go back and forth between the temperature. Check on them every 2 minutes. They only need 10-12 minutes. But cooking times will vary. When the outer rims are golden they are done. But don’t burn! Once you leave them to sit for at least an hour, they will continue to form.

Enjoy!🍪🍪👩‍🍳

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book, Not Without God: A Story of Survival. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. She’s recently been featured on the Intuitive Edge podcast! She’s also been on ESPN’s “Solutions from the Huddle” broadcast and on Grace and Truth Radio World! Zina’s written several hundred articles and has taught thousands of students of all ages from many different backgrounds and cultures. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog, and the Southern Writers magazine among other places. She writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. She also writes on health and diet and loves to help others. Her latest book, Not Without God: Hope In the Storm is live and for sale! You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Without-God-Hope-Storm-ebook/dp/B09P9T2DLT

Culinary

Whole Wheat Flour Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies!🍪🍪👩‍🍳

Yesterday night I made homemade whole wheat chocolate chip walnut cookies and they are sooo delicious! Yumm! Since whole wheat is a much better alternative to white flour, I would like to share my recipe to put a health spin on baking. The next time you make homemade cookies, you may want to try whole wheat flour yourselves! It is better for you than white flour. 🍪🍪☕️

This recipe calls for:

3 cups of whole wheat flour

2 tspns baking soda

16 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white granulated sugar (optional)

3/4 tspn salt

2 eggs

2 tspns vanilla extract

8 ounces of chocolate chips

2 cups crushed walnuts

First, you whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Put in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the butter, sugar(s), eggs, and vanilla, and these don’t need to be too well blended just combine. Oops, don’t forget to add the walnuts and chocolate chips also!

Then, add the flour mix from the separate bowl. Now that all ingredients are in one bowl, use a wooden or regular spoon to combine and mix them together.

The mixture may seem a little dough like and hard to combine at first. Here’s the trick: add up to a half cup of water (as much as needed but not too much!) to moisten the combination of all the ingredients. Use your hand to knead. Put the mixture into cookie dough form.

You can even add extra flour and extra water to the combo mix to make more cookies. I added 2-3 cups extra flour and a little more water! It came out to 43 cookies!

Scoop the cookie dough (1-2 tablespoon sizes) onto oven trays covered with parchment paper, and bake for 8-10 minutes at 350 F. Then move the trays around to rotate cookies, bake for an additional 8-10 minutes. The edges should be golden brown!🍪👩‍🍳

Then let them cool on oven racks for at least an hour. Refrigerate. You can even freeze them for up to a month!🍪☕️🌰

Mixture of the second bowl.
All ingredients combined.
After adding water and kneading.
Cookie dough!
Voila!
Me while baking last night!👩‍🍳☕️🍪

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book, Not Without God: A Story of Survival. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. She’s recently been featured on the Intuitive Edge podcast! She’s also been on ESPN’s “Solutions from the Huddle” broadcast and on Grace and Truth Radio World! Zina’s written several hundred articles and has taught thousands of students of all ages from many different backgrounds and cultures. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog, and the Southern Writers magazine among other places. She writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. She also writes on health and diet and loves to help others. Her latest book, Not Without God: Hope In the Storm is live and for sale! You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Without-God-Hope-Storm-ebook/dp/B09P9T2DLT