Hell Yeah It's Vegan!

I love cookies. The fact that I can whip a batch together in five minutes with a blindfold on and have deliciously tasty cookie dough to eat by the spoonful brings me endless amounts of joy.

Sunday, I set out to make peanut butter cookies with macadamia nut butter, but after considering how well the macadamia nut butter/coconut frosting went over, I decided: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I happened to have fancy trash-picked organic coconut oil on my shelf, but feel free to swap it out for ¼ c soy butter or shortening, as it imparts a very mild flavor anyway. It’s essential that the coconut oil be in a solid state so the fats and sugars can be creamed together, so don’t go trying to make these in August in Philly.

I ended up with these gems, which I brought to a work party and were a big hit. The macadamia flavor is still subtle, mostly contributing to the richness of the cookie; I imagine if you’re a huge macadamia fan, throwing in a half cup of chopped nuts wouldn’t hurt this at all. Toast unsweetened flaked coconut at home by tossing it in a pan on low heat with a little mild oil and some white sugar and stirring rapidly for a minute or two until it starts to brown (be careful not to burn it!). As with all cookies, the longer you bake them, the harder they’ll get, so if you like them on the crunchy side, go ahead and let them brown a bit (~8/9 minutes), and if you like them soft-baked, 6 minutes or slightly less should be fine.

Coconut Macadamia Cookies

yields ~5 dozen 2″ cookies

¾ c shortening
3 tbsp coconut oil (in a solid state–chill if needed)
1½ c macadamia nut butter (about 3 c macadamia nuts, ground with a little salt)
2¼ c brown sugar
1½ tbsp vanilla extract
2 tsp coconut extract
1 tbsp water
egg replacer for 2 eggs (I used potato starch)
¼ c maple syrup
3½ c flour
1½ tsp baking soda
1½ tsp salt (less if your nut butter is salty)
1 c toasted sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350º. Cream together shortening, coconut oil, nut butter, and sugar. Add extracts, water, egg replacer, and syrup and mix well. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt, and blend into wet mixture. Fold in toasted coconut. Form into 1″ balls and flatten slightly with criss-cross indents made with the tines of a fork. Bake on an ungreased sheet about 6 minutes.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 am and is filed under Desserts, Recipes, Vegan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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