New England Maple Cookies

This recipe was unearthed from my cookie archives: a recipe hand-written on an index card with flourishing letters that are not my own. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure where this recipe came from, but I'm glad that it found its way into my collection, somehow, and that I tried them out. I find maple syrup to be a brilliant source of wholesome sweetness in cookies (or any dessert, of course). Since maple syrup contains more complex sugars, it is absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream and therefore does not cause the sugar spike and drop that other sweeteners do. Date sugar, agave, molasses, and brown rice syrup have similar properties as maple syrup in this sense.

So although these cookies are quite sweet in taste, I found that they did not affect my body in the way that other simpler sugars do. And that is good news for these cookies, as a serving should include at least two or three. The one thing that I would want to tweak is the maple flavor: it actually did not come out strong enough for my liking; there's a very delicate maple taste, and if that is all you want, then the recipe is swell as is. But if you want something a bit stronger, as I do, then double the amount of maple extract, and that ought to do it.

New England Maple Cookies
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup butter, softened
2/3 cup date sugar
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
¼ tsp. maple extract
1 egg
2 Tbsp. maple sugar

Directions:
1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. Cream together the butter and evaporated cane juice in a separate bowl. Mix in the maple syrup and maple extract. Add the egg and continue to mix until well-combined. Slowly add the flour mixture.
3. Transfer the dough to a sheet of wax paper and work into a cylinder. Roll up in the wax paper and refrigerate about 3 hours.
4. Preheat oven to 375º F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out to the thickness to 1/8 inch, one half of the dough portion at a time. Cut out 2-inch circles with a cookie cutter and transfer to the cookie sheets. Sprinkle with maple sugar.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks.