Soothed by Supercharged Cookies

Happy Friday! And happy start to a long, holiday weekend! I will be working on Monday, but I’ll work from home instead of going into the office, so that always makes things a little better.

To be honest, the last few days have kind of been rough. The kind where nothing seems to be going the way you want and things seems unfair, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Ya know? So I did what most food bloggers would do:

I drowned my worries in vegan cookies and Kombucha. [I’ve been distraught since Whole Foods embargoed kombucha. But I found some at a regular grocery store in town. Weeeeee! I felt so sneaky about it. hehe. They even had a new-to-me flavor, Gingerade. LOVED it.]

I’d been dying to make Dreena Burton’s Super Charge Me Cookies and today provided the perfect excuse to do so. When I’m stressed or upset, running or baking cookies or bread are my go-to activities. Since I already taught spin this morning, I chose baking. There is something so soothing about the precision of baking, the kneading of dough, and the smell of a filled oven doing it’s magic.

I was sold just from tasting the raw dough. [Please notice my tattered Silpat. Maizey likes baking toys as much as couches.]

I loved them. I loved that they weren’t overly sweet. I loved the texture. I loved the ingredients. And I loved the lack of certain ingredients.

I highly recommend you try them. They come together quickly (you don’t even need to use your mixer) and they’re sure to please even vegan skeptics.

Dreena’s Super-charge Me! Cookies (vegan)

Source: Dreena’s Blog, makes around 12 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quick oats [I used old fashioned, 5 minute cooking oats and it seemed fine to me]
• 2/3 cup spelt flour
• 1/4 tsp (rounded) sea salt
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 cup unsweetened shredded coconut [I used sweetened because it’s what I had on hand]
• 1/4 –1/3 cup raisins or chopped dried fruit [I used dried cherries]
• 3–4 tbsp carob or chocolate chips (optional; or use more dried fruit, nuts, or seeds) [ha! yeah, right! Who would leave out the chocolate chips??]
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup flaxseed meal (not whole flaxseed)
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 3 tbsp almond butter (may use cashew, peanut, hemp seed butter)
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp canola oil

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a bowl, combine oats, flour, salt, cinnamon, coconut, raisins, carob or chocolate chips, and baking powder, and stir until well combined.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flaxseed meal, syrup, almond butter, and vanilla and stir until well combined. Stir in oil.
4. Add wet mixture to dry, and stir until just well combined (do not overmix).
5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spoon batter onto baking sheet and slightly flatten. [I used a standard ice cream scoop to measure mine out and then flattened with the back of a spoon.]
6. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Do not overbake or they will dry out.
7. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet for 1 minute, then transfer to a cooling rack.

I ran the ingredients through the CalorieCount recipe tool and the approximate nutrition stats are (per cookie): 160 calories, 7.5 g fat (1.3 g saturated fat), 1 mg cholesterol, 44 mg sodium, 25 g carbs, 3 g fiber, 3.4 g protein. Not too shabby for a cookie, eh?

Now that I’m all supercharged up, I’m going to go do some yard work. So exciting for a Friday night, right? My brother and his little family are arriving late tonight so Rob and I are trying to get ahead on chores done so we can enjoy our time with them. Hopefully I can stay awake past 9:30 PM to wait for them!

BTW, thank you all so much for the festive dessert ideas! I knew you’d all come through for me. Now I can’t decide which one to make!

Do you find baking soothing? Or am I crazy? Wait, don’t answer the second question.

Have you ever made vegan cookies before? I have, but none with such great success as these!

Tagged as: cookies, kombucha