January 21, 2014

Homemade Oreos (Vegan)

For those of you that are still holding tight to your new years resolutions of eating less sugar, I have a couple of options for you this week. Today, I feature a recipe for homemade Oreos that are much lower in sugar, and later in the week, brownies made with a carrot puree.

Kids and cookies

My son and I have a pact. Our agreement is, that our house will never be without Oreos.

The irony is, he doesn’t actually eat Oreos a lot. It’s almost like a safety thing for him–in the absence of all other desserts, there’s always Oreos.

As you can well imagine, there is quite a lot of homemade baking at my house. It’s rare that there aren’t some kind of scratch-made cookies in my house, as I like to include them in his lunch.

One thing I like about making stuff from scratch is that it gives me more control over what goes in there than store-bought stuff. So, while they still might not be the healthiest thing ever, at least I have some control over what goes into his treats.

I was excited to try a homemade vegan version of Oreos, but it turns out Oreos are vegan. Who knew? So, instead, I bring you a healthier version of Oreos with a ton less sugar and much less saturated fat than their store-bought counterparts.

These got a very enthusiastic stamp of approval from the 10-yr-old.

Lowering your sugar intake

So, we all know too much sugar isn’t good for us. I’ve tried a bunch of different kinds of sugar substitutes in my baking: agave, maple syrup, honey, and stevia. I can’t get past stevia’s metallic aftertaste, and agave, once thought to be good for you, is now turning out to be… not so much. I don’t like artificial sweeteners, and refuse to use them because they scare me.

I was recently introduced to a new sweetener, however, which I used to make these cookies, that I liked quite a bit. Xyla Xylitol is a naturally-derived sweetener that’s made from birch trees. Despite the fact that it’s been around for 100 or so years, and is popular in other places, like Europe, it’s just coming into the market here in Canada. It’s sustainable, too!

The other thing I like about it, is that you can use it cup-for-cup as a sugar substitute, and you don’t have to do any tricky math. It has 40% fewer calories and 75% fewer carbs, but you’d never know from eating it.

Homemade Oreos

adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour (I used AP, but you could sub gluten-free)
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp good quality dark cacao powder
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp Xyla Xylitol
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
3 tbsp soy milk
2 tbsp pure maple syrup

Icing:

1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Earth Balance or other vegan butter
soy milk

Method:

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients, sifting the cacao powder if needed to filter out the lumps.
In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry.
Take a large piece of saran wrap, and lay it out on your counter. Dump the cookie dough onto the saran wrap, then arrange it so that it forms a log of equal proportions all the way down. Roll the saran wrap around the cookie log and roll it well to create a circle. I used my sushi mat for this, and it worked really well.
Place the saran-wrapped log in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Unwrap your cookie log and slice off 1/4inch slices all the way down. Arrange on a cookie sheet (they won’t grow too much, so you can place them pretty close together), and bake for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and let sit for another 10 minutes, before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the filling: in a small bowl, beat the vegan butter with an electric mixer. Add in the vanilla, and then, slowly, the icing sugar. Add a tiny bit of soy milk, a little at a time, until the icing is the right consistency.
To make the cookies: place the cookies bottom-side up, and ice each one, topping with another to make a sandwich.