Fruit Pizza OR Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies w/ Healthy(ish) Frosting

From: Rochelle

Last week, Austin and I bought some strawberries from Costco. What's a better way to eat them than on a fruit pizza! You can use these recipes to make a fruit pizza OR just a healthier sugar cookie. Your choice! I LOVE the frosting recipe because seriously, using these healthy ingredients almost gives it the texture of marshmallow creme, SO good!

Healthy Fruit Pizza OR Sugar Cookies

Whole-Wheat Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

·         2 cups whole wheat flour (If you aren't use to the taste of Whole Wheat, you might want to 1 C Whole-Wheat and 1 C White)

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         1 cup sugar (You can use honey, I will be honest,  it needs the sugar. It's a cookie!) 

·          (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (Or ¼ C Oil, ¼ C Butter)

·         1 egg (Or 2 egg whites or ¼ C egg substitute)

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·         2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1.        In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour with the baking powder and salt.   In another bowl, cream the sugar with the butter until light lemon-yellow, about 4 minutes. Beat in the egg until incorporated. Stir in the vanilla and milk, then add the  flour mixture ½ cup at a time and mix until blended.

2.        Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour, or until firm. This step is really important! 

               

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out until thin, about 1/8 inch. Cut into desired shapes, or make the size you want your pizza.  sprinkle with sugar and place on the prepared sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Makes about 4 dozen 2-inch cutout cookies.

Healthy(ish) Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 C Smart Balance Butter

1 (8 oz) Block of FAT-FREE Cream Cheese

2 C Powered Sugar (or to taste)

2 T Milk

1 tsp Vanilla

Blend with an electric blender until very smooth and fluffy. I recommend starting with the cream cheese, milk, and vanilla. Then gradually add the powdered sugar to taste. 

To assemble your fruit pizza:

1. Bake your sugar cookie crust. Let cool.

2. Spread frosting.

3. Put on desired fruit. We used strawberries & Pineapple, but blueberries and mango would be good too. 

4. Cut and eat!! 

Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies

From: Rochelle


A week or so ago I taught a "Healthy Holiday Cooking" class for my club fundraiser. I did lots of research and found lots of excellent recipes and tips to help cut calories during the holiday season. One of the recipes I found was for these whole wheat sugar cookies. I thought this might be a good one to share since people usually decorate sugar cookies over the holidays. I will tell you, you can taste the whole-wheat in these cookies, but I actually like it and plus with frosting on it, you can't tell anyways.


P.S. Austin gobbled these up in a day!


Healthy Frosting Tips: 
Pillsbury has just come out with sugar-free frosting. This might be a good option to decorate your cookies with.
Also, another good tip is to take all of the frosting out of the tub, and put it in a bowl. Then, using electric beaters, beat the frosting to incorporate more air into the frosting. I add just about 2-3 teaspoons of water as well.  Not only does this make your frosting last longer, but you are using & eating a little bit less frosting. They use this trick with ice cream. They incorporate more air into your ice cream to make it softer and fluffier.

Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies
2 C   Whole Wheat Flour
2 t      Baking Powder
1/2 t   Salt
1 C    Sugar
1/2 C  Unsalted Butter (I used 1/4 C Butter and 1/4 C White Bean Puree)
1        Egg (or 1/4 C Egg Substitute
1 t     Vanilla Extract
2 T    Milk


Directions

1. In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour with the baking powder and salt. 
2. In another bowl, cream the sugar with the butter until a light lemon-yellow, about 4 minutes. Beat in the egg until incorporated. Stir in the vanilla and milk, then add the flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time and mix until blended. 
3. Form dough into disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour, or until firm. 
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 
5. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out until thin, about 1/8 inch. Cut into desired shapes, sprinkle with sugar and place on the prepared sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to wire racks to cool. 

Makes about 4 dozen 2-inch cookies.