Lemon Honey Cookies

After a week on a cruise ship and enjoying fancy desserts at least twice a day, I came home with a bit of a sweet tooth. For the most part I snack on Trader Joe’s dark chocolate, but it also opens up for the opportunity to experiment more with cookies.

I really like the way these turned out given the ingredients. Usually I have to compromise by using half white flour or white sugar to make a really good cookie. Not so here, I used all unprocessed ingredients. Basically, you could eat these cookies for breakfast and be much better off than the boxed cereal eaters of the world.

Often I find when making sweet things that using two different sweeteners yields better results than just one. Natural sweeteners have strong flavors so dividing them makes it so that one is not too overpowering. Honey is liquid, making things too thin and sucanat is brown making things extra dark.

Blending the sucanat has 2 purposes; it powders the sugar for a finer texture and it releases more flavor from the lemon zest. The method is sort of like making biscuits. I use my vita mix, but a food processor would work well too. I would imagine that a nice blender could do the job as well.

I told the kids that these were vegetable cookies. Sprouted spelt is a vegetable right?

¼ cup sucanat
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 1/2 cups sprouted flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup butter
½ cup honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 egg yolks
½ teaspoon vanilla

Place sucanat and zest in blender, blend until powdered. Add the flour, salt and baking powder, pulse to combine. Cut butter into small pieces, place in blender and pulse again until butter is well incorporated. In a mixing bowl, whisk together honey, juice, yolk and vanilla. Turn blender on and slowly pour liquid into blender. Scrape down sides if needed and blend to just combine. Place dough on a sheet of parchment and shape into a log, wrap tightly and refrigerate for two hours. Preheat oven to 375. Unwrap dough and slice into ½ inch rounds. Arrange on baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes. It is best to let them cool on the baking sheet. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

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