Need help making a recipe healthier

[ammiga]

I have a ton of dried figs and would like to make fig newtons. The recipes call for quite a bit of sugar and white flour. I'm not sure where I can swap some honey or something else for some/most of the sugar. I'd also like to use all whole wheat flour if possible, but I don't know how to adjust the recipe for that. I also don't know if it would be better to use whole wheat pastry flour or regular whole wheat flour (when do I use one over the other?)

Here's my inspiration recipe.

[mommy212]

This recipe seems pretty good to me, but if you want to change it up a little my suggestions are measuring 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, take 2 tbls of it back out and replace it with 2 tbls of cornstarch, which will make it lighter and more tender, but this also might be too tender for the cookie, I am not sure- I use this conversion whenever for cakes and stuff usually. As for the sugar in the figs, it seems like it might help it set, like in a jam or jelly, but maybe not. I would think that you could make the fig filling without sugar or with a tbls or two of honey or stevia. You could also add some wheat germ to either the filling or dough if you wanted to.

p.s- the cornstarch in the whole wheat flour is the same as using whole wheat pastry flour, when I never buy since I figured out that conversion :)

[ollyoxenfree]

Last week, I used regular whole wheat flour, rather than white all purpose flour, to make pastry dough for samosas. I kept the butter measurement the same, but I found that I needed to increase the liquid (it was water) by about 1/2 to make a soft, workable dough. It turned out really well though. 

For the filling, if you replace the sugar with honey, it might become a little too runny. I'd be careful and start with a small amount, rather than an equal substitution of volume.