Luscious little lemon cookies

I tried making these cookies this morning. I wanted a lemon dessert recipe that is at least healthier than my old favorites, lemon bars. I found a few recipes for lemon olive oil cookies, and modified it. These little wonders are OUTSTANDING! They definitely don't taste like anything I should be eating! They're crisp on the bottom like a crust, luscious and tender in the middle. Not gooey, but moist, soft, cakey and almost a little chewy. Zippy lemon flavor just like lemon merringue pie. I think I have a new favorite easy cookie recipe! Try 'em out, I bet you'll love them too!

Luscious Little Lemon Cookies

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup unbleached flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

dash salt

dash ginger powder (optional)

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp poppy seeds (could probably leave these out)

2 eggs

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup canola oil

zest of 1 lemon, grated

Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl. In a separate small bowl, beat together remaining ingredients. Pour into dry ingredients and stir just until combined well.

Drop by tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Makes 16 cookies, only about 92 calories each!

Next time I may try swapping out even more of the flour for whole wheat, or replacing the whole eggs with eggwhite or simmered flaxseed meal. Awesome as they are!

Here's the bottom of the cookies, see how golden and lovely? Perfect crisp but tender. Yum!

Whole wheat carrot cake with yogurt sauce

This turned out so yummy! I had carrots to use up, started out planning to make muffins but couldn't find enough muffin tins, so I decided to make carrot cake instead. I meant to make it low fat, but forgot to leave out the oil and use applesauce instead. Next time!

The yogurt sauce is super easy to make, and the tanginess of the yogurt has a similar flavor combo with the carrot cake as you'd expect from cream cheese frosting, without the major fat pill. Cheaper to make too!

Whole Wheat Carrot Cake

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

3 cups shredded carrots

1 cup canola oil (next time I'll try applesauce instead!)

4 eggs

Combine all dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Pour into 2 greased round cake pans and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool 20 minutes or so in pans, then put a plate upside down on top of pan and flip it over to remove cakes from pans. I stacked the cakes with no filling, they stuck together just fine.

Serve wedges drizzled with yogurt sauce.

Yogurt Sauce:

1 6-oz cup low fat plain yogurt (or flavored yogurt if you want)

1/2 cup powdered sugar (could use less)

1/4 cup milk, or as needed to get the consistency you want

Mix together and chill. It will thicken some with standing, since the cultures in the yogurt get to work on the milk added. Yum. Great dressing for fruit salad, dip for fruit or leave out the sugar and add spices instead for a quick creamy salad dressing. So easy!