Christmas Cookies With Whole Wheat Flour

Healthy Christmas Cookie Box Recipes

It’s the season to make and share Christmas goodies. So how about a 1-dough Kuswar tray with six different healthy cookies. Let’s make a delicious assortment of Christmas cookies with whole wheat flour and maida, where half the all-purpose flour (maida) is replaced with whole wheat flour. The perfect cookies for filling a healthy Christmas Cookie Box.

The best part? A healthy kuswar trayful of tasty and nutritious Christmas cookies isn’t difficult to make at all. All you have to do to make these healthy Christmas cookie box recipes is prepare a base dough, make minor additions to the dough for three of the cookies, and you’ll have a platterful, a kuswar trayful, of 6 different healthy Christmas cookies / butter cookies to enjoy at Christmastime. In fact, these healthy Christmas Cookie Box recipes are great for sharing with family and friends over the festive season.

Another healthy recipe with whole wheat flour you could use to fill your kuswar platter would be my recipe for healthy nankhatais. They’re not only healthier than the usual nankhatais, they’re tastier too.

Ingredients

The base dough

160g (approx. 1 ¼ cup) whole wheat flour (atta)

160g (approx. 1 ¼ cup) all-purpose flour (maida)

270g (1 cup + 3 ½ tbsp) salted butter

100g (7 tbsp) granulated or castor sugar

(to be powdered)

OR 100g (¾ cup +1 ½ tbsp) powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

In addition:

2 tbsp whole wheat flour

3 tbsp powdered sugar

Approx. ⅓ cup icing sugar

2 tbsp chopped cashew nuts

2 tbsp chopped almonds

2 ½ tbsp cocoa powder

1 ½ tbsp hot milk

Approx. 3 tbsp jam

Approx. 50g melted chocolate

¼ tsp lime/lemon zest

Red food colour

Green food colour

Procedure

For the base dough:

1. Sift the whole wheat flour and maida, and mix the two together.
2. Whip up the butter with an electric beater or whisk, add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract to it, and then beat everything well again.
3. Now add in the flour mix in three portions, and mix this in on low speed if you’re using an electric beater. Bring the soft dough together by hand and then divide it into five parts. Shape each into a smooth ball.
4. To three of the dough balls you’ll need to add some extra ingredients which I’ve outlined below. With the fourth ball you could make jam or thumb print cookies, and with the fifth one, sandwich cookies.

Jam or thumb print cookies

Shape the base dough into small walnut-size balls, make a depression on the top of each one, and fill these with any melted jam of your choice. Bake the cookies at 170 C (340 F) for around 18-20 minutes. Let them cool completely.

Sandwich cookies

Roll the base dough out between two layers of parchment paper into a thin sheet, less than ¼” in thickness. Chill the dough sheet for 30 – 40 minutes. Then cut out base cookies and the top cookies with cut-out centres. Bake the cookies at 170 C for around 14-15 minutes. Cool them on a wire rack and then assemble them. Sandwich a base cookie and a top cookie together with melted chocolate or melted jam, and add extra chocolate or jam into the window cut into the top cookie. Dust the assembled cookie with icing sugar.

Chocolate-nut cookies

Bloom the cocoa powder with the hot milk. To the base dough, add the bloomed cocoa powder, 1 tbsp powdered sugar, 1 tbsp whole wheat flour, and ¼ cup of chopped almonds and cashew nuts. Mix these ingredients into the base dough. Roll out the cookie dough between two layers of parchment paper into a ¼ ” thick sheet. Chill the dough sheet for 30 – 40 minutes, then cut out cookies of any shape you like and bake these at 170 C for around 18 to 20 minutes. When cooled completely, drizzle melted chocolate on the top of each cookie. Let the chocolate set.

Lime / Lemon-flavoured cookies

To the base dough, add ¼ tsp of sour lime/lemon zest, 1 tbsp of powdered sugar, and green food colour. If using liquid food colour, also add 1 tbsp of whole wheat flour. Bring everything together to form a smooth ball of dough. Roll it out between two layers of parchment paper into a ¼ ” thick sheet. Chill the dough sheet for 30 – 40 minutes, then cut out cookies of any shape you like. Press colourful sprinkles into the centre of each one, and bake these at 170 C for around 18 to 20 minutes. If cutting out smaller size cookies, you would have to bake them for just 14 – 15 minutes. Let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Christmas butter cookies

Add 1 tbsp powdered sugar to the base dough and colour it red. If using liquid colour, also add in 1 tbsp of whole wheat flour. Cut out cookies of any shape, and press some chocolate chips on the top of each one. Bake the cookies at 170 C for around 18 to 20 minutes. Set them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Marble cookies

Gather the scraps of dough left over after cutting out the other cookies, and press them together to form a single ball of dough. Shape this into a cylinder or a cuboid shape, wrap it in butter paper and chill it in the fridge for around 30 minutes. Slice the chilled dough and bake the cookies at 170 C for around 18 – 20 minutes, and then let them cool completely.

Store all the cookies in air-tight containers.

Enjoy!