Category Archives: cookies

{vegan} samoas

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Happy Friday Friends!
Who has some bake time scheduled for this weekend? If so, might I suggest some samoas?
Girl scout cookie season may be over, but that doesn’t mean you can no longer eat girl scout cookies!

I made these cookies once before and I remember loving them, but I never wrote out the full recipe. I had originally found the recipe on the a blog called The Baking Stone, making only a few substitutions, however when I went back to remake them recently I discovered that the blog is no longer around. I racked my brains and a very smudged/handwritten piece of paper and came up with what I believe to be the recipe I originally used. In the end it doesn’t matter if this is the same recipe as before because these cookies came out amazing. Therefore, I am posting the recipe here before it gets lost again. 

vegan samoas

{vegan} samoas
(makes 28 – depending on size)

- 2 heaping cups unsweetened coconut flakes (reduced fat coconut flakes for lower fat cookies)
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1/3 cup nut milk of choice, near room temperature
- 1 cup sucanat or brown sugar
- 1 T ground flax
- 1 t pure vanilla bean paste or extract

chocolate drizzle:

- 6 oz dark chocolate
- 1 t extra virgin coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Toast coconut flakes for 5-7 minutes or until slightly golden. Make sure to stir after 3 mins so they don’t burn!
Once toasted, put aside coconut flakes.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, & salt.

In a larger bowl mix together coconut oil, sugar, milk, flax, vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture. Once combined, fold in the toasted coconut flakes.

Using a melon scooper or spoon, roll the dough and place on cookie sheet. Make sure to press the dough balls down because they will not spread.

Bake for 10-12 mins or until edges are slightly golden. Longer for larger sized cookies.
The cookies will still be very soft when you take them out of the oven and will harden as they cool. At this time poke a hole in the middle with a chopstick or similar sized utensil.

vegan samoas

While the cookies cool, melt the chocolate and coconut oil over a double boiler or in the microwave (stirring every 20 seconds until melted). Dunk the bottom of the cookies into the chocolate and let cool on nonstick foil or parchment. Once all the cookies bottoms have been coated, use a fork and drizzle remaining chocolate over cookies.
(I actually did it the other way around, but recommend coating bottom of cookies before drizzling)

vegan samoas vegan samoas

Place in the freezer for 20 minutes to let the chocolate firm up.

Then package and give to your cookie loving friends : )

vegan samoas

Orrr just save them all for yourself ; ) They keep very well in the freezer just FYI.

I’d venture to say these taste even better than the actual girl scouts samoas. The ingredients are definitely better. And the best part is they’re really simple to make.
Whether you’re a vegan or not, I guarantee these will be enjoyed to the fullest. So get baking!

Have a lovely weekend y’all!

Have any fun plans this weekends?
Do you like girl scout cookies? Which kind is your favorite?

 

 

4 ingredient cookies

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I love baking, but I’m not so much a fan of the clean up, so whenever I suddenly have an urge to bake, I usually aim to make something that requires few ingredients and is easy to clean up after.

Tonight I made some sunflower butter cookies.

4 ingredient flourless nut butter cookies

- 1 cup porridge oats with wheat bran or rolled/quick oats
- 1 cup of your favorite nut butter
-  3 T egg whites, 1 whole egg, or 1 flax egg
- 1/2 cup sucanat***

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Whisk egg and sucanat with fork until combined.  Add nut butter and stir to combine. Fold in oats.
Using a small ice cream scooper, drop rounds onto parchment paper. Flatten mounds slightly as cookies do not spread.
Bake for approximately 11-12 mins. 
Immediately move cookies to cooling rack once out of the oven.

[ Depending on the size, cookies may require more or less time...my batch made 11 cookies total]

***I prefer cookies with less sweetener, but use more sucanat if you prefer a sweeter taste.

I think the natural taste of nut butter with a slight hint of sweetness is perfect.

I always forget how much I like sunflower butter until I taste it. Than I wonder why I don’t eat it more often.

 If you don’t feel like baking, feel free to make 5 ingredient crispies. Even easier! And just as delicious! :p

On the topic of easy sweet treats, one of my favorite sweet snacks lately has been this peanuty&chocolaty treat…

A deep chocolate vita top in a puddle of peanut butter sauce [peanut flour + hot water].

Soo yum.

Especially when the chocolate muffin top absorbs all the peanut sauce.

One of my favorite flavor combos!

What’s your favorite sweet treat? OR flavor combo?

tis the season to be jolly

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“Tis the season to be jolly,
fa la la la la, la la la la”

Can you tell I’ve been listening to christmas music?

I’ve been particularly ‘jolly‘ about a certain fruit lately.

PERSIMMONS

They are one of my all time favorite fruits!

Fuyus or Hachiyas. Don’t matter which one, I like them both!  It’s a shame their only in season during the fall.

I recently got these fuyus, and they’re ginormous.

Here is one of them (on the right) compared to the ones I normally see at the grocery store (two on the left).

See the difference?? 

I’ve eaten so many I’m surprised I haven’t turned orange yet.

And look!

They’re almost as big as my face!

I also peeled and froze a hachiya persimmon from our backyard the other day to add to my smoothie, but I forgot about it :(

So instead I had this concoction this morning.

frozen strawbs + frozen bluebs + unsweetened almond milk + plain greek yogurt + blueberry muffin top pieces added on top

delish!

I think smoothies taste even better when it’s cold out. I was totally freezing after eating this, but nothing a hot cuppa joe-nog can’t fix.

I’m totally obsessed with that silk nog I got a couple days ago. So i’ve been nogging it up, since I know it won’t be around for much longer!

Its really finally beginning to feel a little bit more like the holidays around here. The weather has slightly gone down to semi- Nov/Dec appropriate temps. And on Monday it may drop below 30F!! (i loveee the cold!).

AND my inbox has been stuffed to the brims with emails involving holiday baking and christmas shopping. Can you say online shopping?? And baking??

Every holiday season I bookmark recipes like crazy, especially since cookie, cake, and pie recipes are everywhere, but I never actually get around to making any of them. I’m hoping to at least make a couple this year..

During one of my study breaks earlier this week I made a quick batch of flourless chocolate walnut cookies that were simply amazing.

Crisp on the edges and chewy in the middle.
mMMmm 

I halved this recipe and the only additional change I made was decrease the amount of powdered sugar by 1/4 cup (so i used a total of 1.25 cups). I’d recommend making the full recipe though because these cookies go fast! I also think they’d be amazing with almonds if you’re not really a walnut fan. Or if you’re just an almond fan, like me :)

I don’t think much more baking or online shopping will be happening around here for the next week and a half though. I have finals starting next week and need to really crack down on those books!

I may or may not be taking a hiatus from my blog for a bit because I have an overwhelming amount of things to get done in the next two weeks. So if i’m away for a while, you know why! Otherwise I’ll try to pop in to say ‘hi’ when I get the chance!

Have a JOLLY good weekend! :)