low fat/ low cal healthy OATMEAL COOKIES

curly from cork

Hi All
Would anyone have a recipe for the above ? some people may call them flapjacks , basically they are chewy cookies made with porridge flakes. I am trying to bake a healthy batch of treats. I have started W.W and would love a healthy recipe. Thanks.

Eviledna

Hi there,

Here is a recipe for Oat Cookies I posted last year
(changed the username after the big hack;))

So having done WW in the past I used these cookies and here are the changes I made...

Use connaught gold's "low fat butter" in place of the butter
Substitute half of the sugar for splenda.
Put in slightly less chips, maybe 4oz instead. Use raisins if you like them.

Make the quite small, just a teaspoon of batter. Should make you about 50 of them.

Use http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to calculate the calories and fat if you like once you have the component ingredients.

Also, follow this site for some great ww recipes including very nice choccie cookies, and oaty ones too!: http://greenlitebites.com/

Best of luck...onwards and downwards eh?

curly from cork

open bake
thank you that is really great info you have given me. indeed ..onwards and downwards

curly from cork

disaster:( binned them.
i used the low fat spread and the splenda but id say it was the splenda that killed it !
way too sweet. it was 8 oz of sugar so i used 4 sugar 4 splenda
will try again....

Eviledna

ok sorry I assumed you had baked with splenda before. It says on the back of the pack that splenda matches sugar teaspoon for teaspoon, that's a volume measurement, not weight!!
try again, this time weigh out the 4oz of sugar in a measuring cup, note where it fills the cup up to, then match this volume with splenda. Splenda is much lighter in weight than sugar and many times as sweet, read the pack for more tips

rubadub

Many low fat spreads are unsuitable for baking. Most of them are basically just a mixture of oil, water & gelatine, so it forms a jelly like solid mixture. Many will just make toast soggy, its the same as putting on a scrape of real butter or veg oil and then spraying it with a water mister. Some spreads will have varying amounts, like flora extra light would have even more water in it.

Eviledna

I agree rubadub that most are useless, but I have used this product to make these cookies myself and it does work quite well. I think the difference is that it doesn't contain any vegetable oils and is made "only with cream and skim milk protein".

I've even used it to make sponge fairy cakes and it works quite well in maintaining the taste and texture with less of the fat. I'd recommend it for baking, solely from experience, over any of the other veg-based ones, flora etc. It's a handy product when you're on WW.:)

curly from cork

ok thanks will try again. on the back of the connaught low butter you mentioned , it says unsuitable for baking ..

Eviledna

OpenBake wrote: »

I'd recommend it for baking, solely from experience, over any of the other veg-based ones, flora etc.

I know. But it is. I've used it. It works.

They are covering their ass. It wouldn't do to use it for recipes where the fat content of the butter would be absolutely essential, e.g. making madelines with the beurre noisette method.

TBH, you are going to have a hard time baking on WW if you aren't willing to risk the consequenses of lower fat baking. It naturally won't taste as good as the full fat version, sponges will be slightly more rubbery, splenda will give cookies a metalic aftertaste, etc etc. It's the price you pay for a lighter bite.

Also, be aware that splenda can give headaches if consumed too much. Many people think it is the devils sugar for it's side-effects. Google it for an infomed choice.

Also, maybe a WW recipe book might be a good idea? Helps you figure out the chemistry behind the recipes.

rubadub

OpenBake wrote: »

I think the difference is that it doesn't contain any vegetable oils and is made "only with cream and skim milk protein".

For some reason they do not have to declare water on packets, the actual ingredients are

INGREDIENTS:
Butter, Water, Milk Protein, Salt, Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Natural Colour (beta Carotene), Vitamins A, D, E

In order of greatest, fat content is 40%, saturated is 25%. Now the normal butter is 81% fat so you can presume it is approx 50% butter and the water is a little less. So if you can get away with using 50% of the usually required butter you might be paying over the odds for this diluted version, you could add 50% real butter and 50% as water. The milk protein will act as a stabliser/thickener though, some sites might have other substitutes you could use.

If you look at most low-mid range cakes & biscuits they will use veg oil so I don't think its a problem for cooking.

OpenBake wrote: »

TBH, you are going to have a hard time baking on WW if you aren't willing to risk the consequenses of lower fat baking.

Many people feel WW is bad in the way it demonises sat fat. The butter is higher in sat fat but many in the nutrition & diet forum would recommend it in cooking over polyunsaturated oils. There is currently a thread on ways to increase your coconut oil intake, which is remarkably high in sat fat. I think WW is very outdated and they have gone on too long to put their hands up and admit they are wrong -so they continue to demonise sat fat rather than face a load of people asking why the hell did they not cop on sooner.

I always thought the WW points were a guide as to how fat a food would make you, so I don't know why they think sat fat makes you fatter.

I have said many times.
600kcal portion of coconut is 21.5points
600kcal portion of sugar is 8.5points

I have no doubt 8.5points of sugar would make me put on more fat than 21.5 points of coconut.

One of the moderators in nutrition & diet -ElieenG had this response to my coconut/sugar comment -she was at a WW meeting

EileenG wrote: »

I pointed this out (well, I was using salmon and avocado as my illustrations) and I was politely asked to leave.

Eviledna

I pointed this out (well, I was using salmon and avocado as my illustrations) and I was politely asked to leave.

:eek: That's so crazy, jeepers I hope she got her money back!!

I'd wholeheartedly agree (as usual ) with you rubadub, and tbh when I did WW I found that the non scientific background of the "leaders" drove me to distraction. When you asked them some basic questions behind the methodology or the points system, it was always met with a condescending "don't question, just accept".

But for many doing it, it's a start on the road to what often seems like an unattainable lifestyle - getting control of your food intake and loosing weight to be healthy. For foodies like me it's a tough one and like the OP I immediately tried to substitute the old "bad bickies" for newer healther ones.

I guess I was trying to get that across in my above post, there is always a sacrifice, either in taste, calorific value, nutritional value when baking on WW. Most of the substitutions are usually making it worse (e.g. diet coca-cola cake!) and it was only when I noticed I was getting woeful headaches on the system did I notice how my intake of artificial sweetners had gone through the roof. For many it's the battle against portion control, but in the end a little bit of something "bold" is better than alot of the something better!

So maybe OP, try the lighter version if you'd like, or just make smaller versions of the original recipe

curly from cork

much better once i got the hang of the splenda ... going down well in the kitchen .thanks everyone. used the connaught low fat too. now i ll have to ration them or im defeating the purpose :D