Carrot Cake Cookie Sandwiches... a real mouth full!

Think... carrot cake meets ice cream sandwich meets healthy treat and you have a Carrot Cake Cookie Sandwich.  I found this recipe through the WebMD recipe blog.  If you don't already subscribe to it, you must ASAP. The blog shows the best healthy recipes (well besides Yellow Apron Experiment ones of course).  I'm not usually much of a baker, but I thought these deserved a try.  I never bake because then the sugary high calorie treats are in the house, and well we just end up eating them in no time at all!


I re-wrote the recipe as I found it, with my added in additions...

Ingredients:
1 cup organic whole wheat pastry flour (very different from regular whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup wheat bran (I couldn't find this, so I used oat bran)
1 cup oatmeal (such as Quaker Old Fashioned Oats)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots (yes, hand shredded not store bought)
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tbsp butter, room temperature (if not softer!)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup golden raisins

Filling:

17.6 oz container 2% plain greek yogurt

1/4 cup honey

1 tbsp. cinnamon

(I also added some coconut flakes)

Steps:
1)  Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2)  In a small bowl, soak the raisins in 1/2 cup hot water.  (I really have no idea why you have to do this...)

3)  Grate the carrots by hand.  At first I thought why in the world would I do this, when I can just buy shredded carrots.  But then I realized, store bought ones are rather long and stringy.  For this you really do need the carrots hand grated, so they are much smaller pieces and much softer.

4) In a bowl combine the eggs, applesauce, butter, brown sugar, and vanilla.  Mix well.

5)  Drain the raisins, and add to the wet mixture.  Mix in the carrots.

6) In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, oat bran, oatmeal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice.

7)  Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Mix throughout.  The dough will be stickier than your normal cookie, but thick enough to form on a cookie sheet.

8)  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (wax paper).

9)  Drop a small amount of dough onto the sheet.  I used a tablespoon, but you could even go smaller.

10)  Bake for about 12-16 minutes.

11)  In the meantime, mix the ingredients for the filling.  Let sit in the fridge until all the cookies are done and have cooled.

12)  Assemble the cookies:  I tried it first with two cookies, and filling in the middle.  This was almost too much.  I liked it better with just one cookie and a dollop of filling on top.

Warm cookies with the filling on top

Eek!!

13)  If you aren't going to eat the "sandwiches" immediately, plan on laying the cookies on a platter and freezing them.  The downfall to this, is the cookies do take up a lot of space.  I had to completely re-arrange our nicely organized and categorized freezer (yes, I am a bit anal with organization... but you have to be when working with middle school kids!).   If you do freeze the cookies, zap them in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds before eating them.

Frozen cookies...

(I read that one sandwich (2 cookies, and filling) is only about 146 calories... but I don't know how accurate that really is!!


Ever try this recipe or any of the other Yellow Apron Experiment recipes??? I'd love to hear all about it in the comments below!

~Eat Well and Be Happy~