This Christmas eat sugar free, egg free, healthy and yummy Polenta Cookies without having any guilt! First time I tried Polenta for making cookies. I clubbed some peanut butter and jaggery for a vegan and sugarfree cookie. Loved the cookie as it was chewy, crunchy from outside, soft from within and quite healthy. I have used my instincts to make this cookie. I am looking forward to experiment more with this new ingredient in my kitchen. Before Christmas starts wish all my readers, friends and subscribers a Merry Christmas and have a great time.
What is Polenta??? Polenta is a cornmeal which is made into porridge. Don’t confuse between cornflour and polenta both are two different types of extract made from corn. Polenta is a coarse flour which resembles a lot like semolina texture wise. It’s often used for making porridge’s, gluten free cakes and cookies. Corn flour is fine flour used as thickening agent for soups. I have used organic polenta which was gifted to me by my sis. It’s said the coarser the polenta the better it is.
If you not fond of peanut butter use normal butter. If you don’t have polenta don’t worry just replace with semolina. Further I have added some roasted chopped peanuts for the crunch in the cookies. I have used jaggery powder you could use sugar. This cookie could be made gluten free by adding rice flour instead of refined flour. I loved the pics for this post. Very rarely I like my pics. Guess each day is a great learning for food photography. Also background, colors, props and light makes a lot of difference. You cannot say your journey has come to an end for photography the more pics you take the better the pictures are.
Polenta Cookies Recipe and printable version below:
- 150 gm polenta Or semolina (I used coarse organic polenta flour)
- 75 gm gram flour (besan)
- 75 gm refined flour Or rice flour
- 150 gm peanut butter Or butter (I used organic peanut butter)
- 1 t/s baking powder
- 125 gm jaggery powder Or powdered sugar as required (I used organic jaggery powder)
- 2 tbsp hot water Or as required
- 1 t/s salt
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract / essence
- ½ cup roasted peanuts chopped coarsely (optional)
- Preheat oven at 180°C exactly fifteen mins before baking. Grease the baking tray and place aside.
- Sieve flour, salt and baking powder. Add polenta and mix all nicely
- Mix jaggery powder with hot water and keep aside.
- Make a small well in the sifted flour.
- Add jaggery mixed with hot water, peanut butter, chopped peanuts if using and vanilla extract.
- Combine all and knead into a soft and smooth dough.
- It should be a slightly sticky dough. Allow the dough to rest for 30 mins covered with a cling film Or damp cloth.
- Now you could chill the dough for 30 mins. Shape them into lemon sized balls and gently flatten them with your palms. Alternatively you could shape them into star, heart with the help of cookie cutter.
- You could also form a log and then chop them into ½ inch width each. Use your imagination to make cookies.
- Bake at 180°C for 14 mins Or until the edges are slightly brown in color.
- Allow the cookies to cool down completely. Dust some icing sugar over the cookies. Store them into an airtight box and eat when and as you like.
Ensure the oven is preheated before you bake these cookies.
If the dough is sticky refrigerate for sometime before shaping them.
I prefer less sweet you could use jaggery / sugar as per your preference.
For gluten free cookies replace the refined flour with rice flour.
dassana says
the cookies are looking neat and too good.
maria says
Thankyou Dassana I am happy you liked them as I adore your photographs hence it means a lot to me. Thankyou for dropping by 🙂