Breakfast cookies

                                 

These cookies were originally supposed to be peanut butter cookies. I was trying to improve the recipe I have for them, that I posted a couple of weeks ago. And although these were not exactly what I was expecting they were pretty great.   

They are probably some of the simplest cookies I have ever made! And because these are so healthy, low sugar, gluten-free, oil free, vegan, they are perfect for anytime of day (hence the name "Breakfast Cookies"). 

Just so you know, the cookies are not very sweet. So if you decide to make them and want to add more sugar, just stir in some more maple syrup or agave. Agave works about the same as maple syrup, only it tastes slightly sweeter.

Ingredients:

1 overripe banana

1/4 cup of peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon milk substitute 

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 1/4 cups rolled oats

1 tablespoon cacao nibs (optional)

2 tablespoon whole wheat flour (optional) 

Directions:

     Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. Mash the banana well

2. Mix in the vanilla, milk substitute, and maple syrup

3. Add the oats and cacao nibs 

4. Drop spoonfuls of the dough on to an ungreased baking sheet, bake for 13-16 minutes

Notes:

The cacao nibs make the dough a little bitter, so if you want to avoid that skip them or use chocolate chips. Also, I only put flour in half of the dough so that some of them would be gluten free. If you choose to do this half the flour and try to remember which ones are which.

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin cookies

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!! This recipe is perfect for a dessert after a filling vegan Thanksgiving dinner. Also, I am going to have plenty of leftover cookies (I know, I know, how can there be such a thing as too many cookies?), so I plan on bringing some to my neighbor. These are seriously some of the best cookies I have ever tasted. Even though it is a somewhat complicated recipe, it is definitely worth it.  

yummy dough

Ingredients


For the cookies:
1 cup coconut oil
1 cup margarine (I used earthbalance)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour 

frosting in the pan

1/2 cup banana (about 1 banana)
1 15 oz can of pumpkin


For the frosting:
1/2 cup margarine
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons molasses
1/4 cup almond or soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. With an electric mixer beat coconut oil and margarine for about 30 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

3. Slowly mix the flour in with the other ingredients.

4. Add banana and pumpkin and combine well. 

5. Put large balls of dough onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the outside of the cookies are just starting to get crispy. Move cookies to a cooling rack.

6. While cookies are in the oven make the glaze. In a sauce pan melt margarine, sugar, and molasses, stirring regularly. Transfer to a medium sized bowl and mix in milk substitute, vanilla, and powdered sugar. For a thicker frosting add more powdered sugar. Drizzle on the cookies.

    Makes about 3 dozen

finished frosting

 

 

Vegan sugar

Is my sugar vegan? The answer is: not always. During the refining process of sugar, char is used to make the sugar white. And sometimes it is bone char. The bone char comes from cow pelvic bones mostly, although other dense bones are also used. But, organic sugar is processed slightly differently and it is not allowed have bone char used to decolorize it. The same goes for beet sugar. 

So you might be wondering how much bone is actually used. It turns out to be quite a lot. Because only certain bones can be used each cow has about 9 pounds of char. Each column can hold up to 70,000 pounds of char. That means that one column takes somewhere 7,800 cows. The char doesn't need to be replaced that often, though, only around every 5-10 years. Not to mention there may be more than one column in each factory. 

Organic sugar goes through minimal refining if any, and because of this there is no way that bone char could be used. Additionally, if sugar is organic, consumers tend to care less that it's more of a tan color. Right now most organic sugar is imported from other countries and there are only a few companies bases in the United Sates that produce it. 

Here is a chart from The Vegetarian Resource Group 

Bone Char-Free Sugars Produced By U.S. Companies
Company	Brand Name
C&H Sugar	C&H Pure Cane Washed Raw Sugar C&H Pure Cane Certified Organic Sugar
Cumberland Packing Company	Sugar in the Raw
Domino Sugar	Domino Demerara Washed Raw Cane Sugar Domino Pure Cane Certified Organic Sugar
Florida Crystals	Florida Crystals Demerara Natural Sugar Organic Evaporated Cane Juice (granulated and powdered) Golden Granulated Evaporated Cane Juice Florida Crystals Milled Cane Natural Sugar Florida Crystals Certified Organic Natural Sugar
Great Eastern Sun	Sweet Cloud Organic Raw Cane Sugar
Hain Celestial Group	Hain Organic Brown Sugar Hain Organic Powdered Sugar
Shady Maple Farms	Shady Maple Farms Granulated Maple Sugar
Tropical Traditions	Rapadura Whole Organic Sugar
Wholesome Sweeteners	Light Muscovado Sugar Dark Muscovado Sugar Sucanat (granulated and powdered) Organic Sucanat (granulated and powdered)
NOTE: 100% Pure Beet Sugar is not passed through a bone char filter.

Vegan Oatmeal Cookies

 












Ingredients

1/2 cup coconut oil, softened
1/2 cup butter substitute (or more coconut oil)
1 cup sugar
2 servings of egg replacer
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 
2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon 
3 cups of oats (for my cookies I used 1 cup of instant and 2 cups of rolled oats, but I think any combinations of the two would work)
1/4 cup soy or other milk substitute 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease pan.

2. With an electric mixer cream coconut oil and butter substitute and sugar. Add egg replacer, mix, then stir in the vanilla extract.

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together well. Mix that into the wet ingredients and add the oats. Slowly stir in the soy milk until the dough is clumpy.

4. Make small balls and put on the greased baking sheet, flatten with a fork. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, transfer to cooling rack.
   
Notes

These cookies came out a bit crumbly, so after I put them a the cooling rack, I put the crumbs left on the baking pan in a jar with almonds and dried fruit. Delicious! Also, I think these would taste great with chocolate chips. Just add 1 cup of them to the recipe. I adapted this recipe from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/soft-oatmeal-cookies/