How to Make Healthier Holiday Cookies

Holidays treats are a big part of the magic of the season, but they're also often full of unhealthy ingredients. Fortunately, there are some surprisingly simple ways to "upgrade" your holiday baking, and make your favorite recipes more delicious AND wholesome.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• whole wheat pasty flour
• unsweetened applesauce

1. Replace half the white flour in your favorite recipes with whole wheat pastry flour.
2. Replace half the fat with unsweetened applesauce or other fruit puree. For best results, drain the applesauce first for about 10 minutes.
3. Get creative with the decorations, consider replacing candies with dried fruit pieces- raisins make great "buttons", for example and dried mango, papaya and pineapple bits make colorful scarfs and other accents.

Tips & Warnings

• If you’re hesitant to bake with whole grains because of the heavier, nutty texture, try using whole wheat pastry flour in all of your baking. Whole wheat pastry flour is much lighter than standard whole wheat flour.
• For things like muffins and banana breads you’ll be able to substitute up 2/3rds without noticing much of a difference.
• If you’d like to incorporate more whole grain into your daily diet, King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking Book is a good cookbook with lots of tasty recipes to try.
• Enjoy your whole grain holiday!