Vegan Christmas Cookies 3 Ways- Also Keto-Friendly! (and a little bonus)
Happy Holidays All Ye Faithful Followers!
It has been a hot minute since I posted a recipe! Very busy semester and not much inspiration for new content caused me to really hit a wall with this one, but luckily my prayers have been answered and I have some really good friends at church who, though they may not know and would likely be surprised to read this, have been instrumental in helping me to generate new content and giving me the motivation I need to get going with my social media again. These people are my rock! I went Christmas caroling yesterday as part of a church event and I knew in advance that they would be serving Christmas cookies and hot chocolate afterwards. Not wanting to be left out, I made some Christmas cookies for myself the day before so I could have some, and I made enough to share at Mass before and with fellow carolers afterwards, and they were a huge hit I just had to share them. A couple of my friends specifically asked me to post the recipe I used for the cookies on here because they were so good. They said that if they didn't know I was a health foodie and didn't tell them, they would never have known these were healthy! Healthy baking doesn't have to be hard. This recipe is actually very easy. I started with a base recipe that I just added to to make three different flavors.
The base recipe incorporates 5 ingredients (one is optional but the end result will be different in terms of presentation) and is very quick to make with easy clean up. One thing I should mention with the nut butter (which is vitally important in the base of this recipe) is that you want to use one that does not contain added sugar or trans fats because both will make the nut butter more solid which makes it very difficult to work with, making it both bad for you and bad for your baking! If the nutrition label doesn't specifically mention trans fats, you will know yours contains trans fats because they are also called "hydrogenated oils", so if there are any hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list, that one contains trans fats. Luckily it's not hard to find nut butters without added sugars and trans fats. The only two brands I can name off the top of my head that do use them are JIF and Skippy, and even they have some products without these problem ingredients, so you should have no trouble finding a suitable product. If you can't find the specific nut butter you want to use, you can DIY it. Just buy the nut in question and toast the nuts in the 350*F (176.667*C) oven for 7 minutes, then run them through the food processor until a liquid butter forms. You'll know it's done because after a few minutes, when the natural oils start to really come out, you'll see what resembles a ball of dough. With patience, the ball will disintegrate and you'll have a really smooth consistency and that's when it's good to go.
As a disclaimer, I claim these cookies are keto because the base recipe (as I made them) is keto but I am aware that some add ins I used may not be keto friendly, so please don't nitpick about that in the comments or on other platforms I use. Not being the keto expert (I don't do keto), I think the added carbs from folding in things in like candy canes and crystallized ginger would be negligible, especially because these are meant to be a seasonal treat. I would not expect that simply folding in something that alone is not keto would be sufficient to knock someone who's in ketosis out of that metabolic state. I am not a dietician and though I strive to make valuable contributions to the online health food community, I am not liable if my suggestions are inappropriate for a particular reader's needs. I am simply sharing what I did and what works for me that I hope my readers can also enjoy. Always make decisions that work for your body, diet, and health and that goes for anything you see on someone's blog. We can, should, and do exchange ideas to inspire one another and take what resonates with us and use what we learn from one another in a way that resonates with us.
Without further ado, here is my base recipe for these cookies
Base recipe ingredients:
1c nut butter of choice
1c not-liquid-or-powder sugar of choice (I used Stevia In The Raw. Organic raw cane sugar works if not keto)
1tbsp flaxseed meal
3tbsp water
*1/4c+2tbsp coconut flour
*The coconut flour is optional. These cookies are good with or without it but if trying to achieve a particular shape (which people often do when making Christmas cookies), please do yourself a favor and use the coconut flour. Without it, these cookies spread out a lot, enough to make a cookie sheet cake instead of portion controlled individual cookies even when placed very far apart on the cookie sheet. If that's not an issue for you, you can leave the coconut flour out.
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*F (176.667*C). Mix the flaxseed meal and water together with a fork and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Combine all ingredients with a fork or your hands in a mixing bowl. Chill dough in the freezer until it's cold but not tough to work with. It will not stick to the bowl, your hands, or the work surface.
3. Roll out your dough until it's about 1/4 inch thick and cut out desired shapes OR break off small pieces and roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter.
4. Bake for 17 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Afterwards, immediately remove cookies from baking sheet and transfer to a wire cooling rack. If decorating them, wait for them to completely cool before you begin.
The three kinds of cookies I made are pecan hazelnut, orange gingerbread, and candy cane. I used the above base recipe for all of them and mixed up the add ins to get the flavors I was going for. I didn't measure them but for anything folded in, a few tablespoons to a quarter cup is standard but for powders, extracts, and seasonings, a few pinches to barely a teaspoon is standard. Don't worry about getting them exact. They won't affect the chemistry of the recipe, which is why I never measure them (and it's because I never measure these things that I can't give you guys measurements for them either because they'd be arbitrary numbers and I don't want to do that to you guys)
For the pecan hazelnut cookies, I used pecan butter in the cookie base and folded in chopped hazelnuts.
For the orange gingerbread cookies, I used almond butter in the cookie base, mixed in ground cardamom, grated ginger, orange zest, and orange extract, and folded in crystallized ginger, and replaced 1tbsp of the stevia with molasses.
For the candy cane cookies, I used coconut butter in the cookie base, colored them with spirulina powder, flavored them with peppermint essential oil (can also use peppermint extract), and folded in crushed up candy cane pieces.
As a bonus....
Because they were also serving hot chocolate at the church event, I also developed a recipe for a dairy free dry mix. That's even easier. In an airtight container, add 1tbsp coconut flour, 1tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and 2tbsp organic raw cane sugar (or other not-liquid sweetener of choice) and shake the container to combine. For each cup, simply put 2tsp of the dry mix in the bottom of your cup and add the hot water and mix with a coffee stirrer or mini whisk.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe. Please leave me a comment of more ideas of other ways we could add to the base recipe to make whole new cookies, and also, I am trying to learn more about how to cook and bake things that are both vegan AND keto so I can be inclusive to all, so if you know have any knowledge about this topic, please share your ideas with me and I will give them a try.
It has been a hot minute since I posted a recipe! Very busy semester and not much inspiration for new content caused me to really hit a wall with this one, but luckily my prayers have been answered and I have some really good friends at church who, though they may not know and would likely be surprised to read this, have been instrumental in helping me to generate new content and giving me the motivation I need to get going with my social media again. These people are my rock! I went Christmas caroling yesterday as part of a church event and I knew in advance that they would be serving Christmas cookies and hot chocolate afterwards. Not wanting to be left out, I made some Christmas cookies for myself the day before so I could have some, and I made enough to share at Mass before and with fellow carolers afterwards, and they were a huge hit I just had to share them. A couple of my friends specifically asked me to post the recipe I used for the cookies on here because they were so good. They said that if they didn't know I was a health foodie and didn't tell them, they would never have known these were healthy! Healthy baking doesn't have to be hard. This recipe is actually very easy. I started with a base recipe that I just added to to make three different flavors.
The base recipe incorporates 5 ingredients (one is optional but the end result will be different in terms of presentation) and is very quick to make with easy clean up. One thing I should mention with the nut butter (which is vitally important in the base of this recipe) is that you want to use one that does not contain added sugar or trans fats because both will make the nut butter more solid which makes it very difficult to work with, making it both bad for you and bad for your baking! If the nutrition label doesn't specifically mention trans fats, you will know yours contains trans fats because they are also called "hydrogenated oils", so if there are any hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list, that one contains trans fats. Luckily it's not hard to find nut butters without added sugars and trans fats. The only two brands I can name off the top of my head that do use them are JIF and Skippy, and even they have some products without these problem ingredients, so you should have no trouble finding a suitable product. If you can't find the specific nut butter you want to use, you can DIY it. Just buy the nut in question and toast the nuts in the 350*F (176.667*C) oven for 7 minutes, then run them through the food processor until a liquid butter forms. You'll know it's done because after a few minutes, when the natural oils start to really come out, you'll see what resembles a ball of dough. With patience, the ball will disintegrate and you'll have a really smooth consistency and that's when it's good to go.
As a disclaimer, I claim these cookies are keto because the base recipe (as I made them) is keto but I am aware that some add ins I used may not be keto friendly, so please don't nitpick about that in the comments or on other platforms I use. Not being the keto expert (I don't do keto), I think the added carbs from folding in things in like candy canes and crystallized ginger would be negligible, especially because these are meant to be a seasonal treat. I would not expect that simply folding in something that alone is not keto would be sufficient to knock someone who's in ketosis out of that metabolic state. I am not a dietician and though I strive to make valuable contributions to the online health food community, I am not liable if my suggestions are inappropriate for a particular reader's needs. I am simply sharing what I did and what works for me that I hope my readers can also enjoy. Always make decisions that work for your body, diet, and health and that goes for anything you see on someone's blog. We can, should, and do exchange ideas to inspire one another and take what resonates with us and use what we learn from one another in a way that resonates with us.
Without further ado, here is my base recipe for these cookies
Base recipe ingredients:
1c nut butter of choice
1c not-liquid-or-powder sugar of choice (I used Stevia In The Raw. Organic raw cane sugar works if not keto)
1tbsp flaxseed meal
3tbsp water
*1/4c+2tbsp coconut flour
*The coconut flour is optional. These cookies are good with or without it but if trying to achieve a particular shape (which people often do when making Christmas cookies), please do yourself a favor and use the coconut flour. Without it, these cookies spread out a lot, enough to make a cookie sheet cake instead of portion controlled individual cookies even when placed very far apart on the cookie sheet. If that's not an issue for you, you can leave the coconut flour out.
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*F (176.667*C). Mix the flaxseed meal and water together with a fork and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Combine all ingredients with a fork or your hands in a mixing bowl. Chill dough in the freezer until it's cold but not tough to work with. It will not stick to the bowl, your hands, or the work surface.
3. Roll out your dough until it's about 1/4 inch thick and cut out desired shapes OR break off small pieces and roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter.
4. Bake for 17 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Afterwards, immediately remove cookies from baking sheet and transfer to a wire cooling rack. If decorating them, wait for them to completely cool before you begin.
The three kinds of cookies I made are pecan hazelnut, orange gingerbread, and candy cane. I used the above base recipe for all of them and mixed up the add ins to get the flavors I was going for. I didn't measure them but for anything folded in, a few tablespoons to a quarter cup is standard but for powders, extracts, and seasonings, a few pinches to barely a teaspoon is standard. Don't worry about getting them exact. They won't affect the chemistry of the recipe, which is why I never measure them (and it's because I never measure these things that I can't give you guys measurements for them either because they'd be arbitrary numbers and I don't want to do that to you guys)
For the pecan hazelnut cookies, I used pecan butter in the cookie base and folded in chopped hazelnuts.
For the orange gingerbread cookies, I used almond butter in the cookie base, mixed in ground cardamom, grated ginger, orange zest, and orange extract, and folded in crystallized ginger, and replaced 1tbsp of the stevia with molasses.
For the candy cane cookies, I used coconut butter in the cookie base, colored them with spirulina powder, flavored them with peppermint essential oil (can also use peppermint extract), and folded in crushed up candy cane pieces.
As a bonus....
Because they were also serving hot chocolate at the church event, I also developed a recipe for a dairy free dry mix. That's even easier. In an airtight container, add 1tbsp coconut flour, 1tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and 2tbsp organic raw cane sugar (or other not-liquid sweetener of choice) and shake the container to combine. For each cup, simply put 2tsp of the dry mix in the bottom of your cup and add the hot water and mix with a coffee stirrer or mini whisk.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe. Please leave me a comment of more ideas of other ways we could add to the base recipe to make whole new cookies, and also, I am trying to learn more about how to cook and bake things that are both vegan AND keto so I can be inclusive to all, so if you know have any knowledge about this topic, please share your ideas with me and I will give them a try.