“I don’t like beets”! That was my darling son’s response when I told him I had made Sweet Beet Cookies. I thought sandwiching the word beet between sweet and cookie would serve as sufficient enough distraction for Kenya. Not so much. And since I never want to trick my kids into eating foods that are good for them and hope they learn to love them on their own, simply calling this recipe something like Red Cookies was out of the question.
But if the name itself wasn’t a selling point, the site of these cookies was. As soon as Kenya actually saw them, his eyes lit up. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “I love beets!” As Kenya will now attest, not only are these cookies gorgeous, perfectly sweet and super crunchy, they’re also packed with folates and vitamin C. They’re the kind of treats that make everyone happy. Beet that!
Sweet Beet Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup raw beets, shredded fine*
- 2 tablespoons oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
- Using your hands, add the shredded beets to the flour mixture and toss to coat.
- Add the oil and work with your hands to bring the dough together (the salt and sugar will fall to the bottom of the bowl so make sure you knead the dough well to combine everything — the outcome will be a smooth dough).
- Form the smooth, sweet beet dough into a flat disk and roll it out to 1/2 inch thick on parchment paper or a dry clean surface.
- Using a knife, cut the dough into squares or use small cookie cutters to cut out shapes.
- Bake on a Silpat or parchment-lined cookie sheet for 15-17 minutes.
- *You can only use RAW fine shredded beets for this recipe. Using canned beets will not work because of the thickness of the beets and they are already cooked.
I just made these and, much to my shock, they were a hit with my two year old! She helped me cut them into fun shapes and was so excited to eat them!
The recipe does make a fairly small ball of dough and my dough was pretty elastic so it was hard to keep it stretched out to 1/2″ thick long enough to cut it, so I didn’t get a ton of cookies from the recipe, but it would be easy peasy to double it.
When I was mixing my dough, I started to think I wasn’t ever going to get it to come together as more than a crumbly mess, but I ended up squeezing handfuls of it at a time to get the beets to give up a little moisture and then it was easy to get it into a big ball. Thanks for the recipe. I’m thrilled to have another vegetable I can put on my “My Kid Will Eat This” list!
Thanks for the recipe! My beet cookies came out great, can’t wait to make some more before the holidays. I used melted coconut oil as my oil of choice, and changed nothing else. Might try adding peppermint next time.
I love this recipe.. My cookies turned out perfect.. I juiced beets & apples first. Then put the pulp into my vitamix. i used canola oil b/c thats what I had..