March 7th, 2015
I’ve grown very used to making my own nut butters, it’s complete second nature by now. I buy nuts and seeds in bulk, which is cheaper, and blending them up to a buttery stage in my food processor is quick, easy and produces delicious results.
The other day I ran out of my homemade tahini and needed it as an emergency for a recipe, deciding to grab a jar at the store. I got a look at my local health food market nut butter shelf for the first time in a long time and was amazed at the variety of different nut and seed butters on display. A beautiful bright green butter caught my eye – it turned out to be sprouted pumpkinseed butter.
I didn’t buy it that day, but the idea haunted me for a few weeks before I finally gave in and made my own pumpkinseed butter. Mine is not sprouted but toasted, and the color is not as brilliant but still very beautiful. After having it on toast and loving it, I imagined that the butter would be a nice base for baked goods. That’s when these cookies were born.
They are crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside, with the pleasant addition of goji berries. If you don’t have goji, replace them with other dried fruit, chocolate pieces or nut of choice. Enjoy!
Pumpkinseed Butter Goji Cookies
(loosely adapted from here)
makes 16 cookies
for pumpkinseed butter
2 cups raw pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons olive oil plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
for cookies
1/4 cup oat flour, plus more if needed
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup pumpkinseed butter (see below)
3 tablespoons coconut oil – soft, at room temperature
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup goji berries
to make pumpkinseed butter
1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine pumpkin seeds with 2 tablespoons olive oil and salt in a medium bowl, mix to coat. Spread on a parchment paper covered baking sheet and toast for 10 minutes. Let cool.
2. Place pumpkinseeds in a food processor and grind finely. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil through the funnel with machine still running. Continue to process until a ball of pumpkinseed butter forms. Scrape the walls of the food processor if necessary. Add more oil, 1 tablespoon at a time and continue processing until seeds turn into creamy, runny butter. You’ll need 1/2 cup of it for the recipe, keep the rest refrigerated in an air tight container and spread on toast or use in more baking.
to make cookies
1. Keep oven at 375 F. Combine 1/4 cup of oat flour, brown rice flour, oats and soda in a medium bowl.
2. Combine pumpkin butter, coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla extract in a separate medium bowl and mix to combine.
3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir to combine. If the batter appears too runny, add more oat flour, about 2 tablespoons should be enough. Add goji berries.
4. Prepare a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Using a small (1 1/2″) ice-cream scooper or 2 teaspoons, scoop a cookie at a time and arrange on the sheet 2″ apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are slightly golden brown. Let cool completely to firm up.
Tags: cookies, dessert, goji, pumpkin seeds
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January 9th, 2013
This post is also available in: French
Aran Goyoaga hardly needs an introduction. Her amazing blog Cannelle et Vanille attracts thousands of readers with its sunny photographs and clever gluten-free recipes. I waited for the arrival of her first cookbook Small Plates and Sweet Treats with little patience, but it was very much worth all of the wait. It is full of the same gorgeous photography and exciting ideas. Everything that I’ve made from the book so far has been more than delicious. Paloma and I cooked the Glazed Apple and Chestnut Bundt Cakes and the Chocolate, Beet and Almond Butter Molten Cakes for Thanksgiving. Then we tried the Chocolate Frangipane and Raspberry Tarts for our New Year’s celebration. Friends loved them all. I also haven’t been able to get enough of the Roasted Parsnip and Apple Soup and these shortbread cookies – they are truly addictive.
Pink peppercorns have become somewhat of an obsession for me lately. They are so good on almost anything – in savoury dishes, as garnish for creamy soups, sprinkled on salads, and as an aromatic, spicy addition to a dessert. In these cookies, the combination of ingredients is mind blowing, the flavour is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before. I tweaked Aran’s recipe a little by adding pumpkin seeds instead of pistachios and substituting regular butter with nut butters and ghee. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with adding ground pumpkin seeds in place of some flours in baked goods, and I’m really loving the results. Another thing that I’ve been making regularly is pistachio butter. Like any nut butter, it’s easy to make with the help of a food processor and is wonderful on its own or added to baked treats.
Look for many more inspiring recipes in the book.
Pink Peppercorn Cookies
(adapted from Small Plates and Sweet Treats)
makes about 50 cookies
1 cup pumpkin seeds – ground into flour in a food processor
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons pink peppercorn – coarsely ground in a mortar with a pestle or in a dedicated coffee grinder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons almond butter
5 tablespoons pistachio butter
5 tablespoons ghee
1/2 cup honey or 3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 vanilla bean – seeds scraped out
3/4 cup powdered coconut sugar – for dusting
1. In a medium sized bowl, combine pumpkin seed flour with the other flours, starch, peppercorns and salt. Set aside.
2. Scrape seeds from the vanilla bean. In a bowl of a stand up mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine all the butters with the honey/coconut sugar and vanilla bean seeds and beat until well incorporated and fluffy. Add in the dry mixture and mix everything into a dough.
Alternatively, use a hand mixer to combine the butters with honey/sugar and vanilla seeds and then add the butter mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix with a spoon, then knead with your hands to form a dough. If using coconut sugar, the dough will be drier and slightly harder to combine.
3. Place the dough on a work surface and shape it into 2 logs, about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap them in parchment paper and roll, trying to make the log as round as possible. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350 F. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap and cut into disks 1/4-inch thick. Place them on a parchment paper-covered baking tray about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes until the bottom is golden. Don’t over bake to prevent cookies from getting hard and dry. The cookies will be very soft when hot. Leave them to cool on the tray for 10 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar. Keep in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Tags: book review, cookies, gluten free, pink peppercorn, pumpkin seeds, recipe
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December 16th, 2012
Today, I don’t want to say much, just that our hearts go out to the victims and families of the terrible tragedy in CT.
Butternut squash, cranberries, and winter spices are the ingredients I keep coming back to lately. I’ve made many batches of these simple cookies for the past couple of weeks, both baked and raw. The baked kind come out crumbly and moist, while the raw cookies are dense and filling, very good for a quick breakfast. We can’t decide which one is better, it depends on whom you ask.
Butternut Squash and Cranberry Cookies
(makes about 22 small cookies)
1 cup and 2 tablespoons brown rice flour
1/4 cup each almond and coconut flour
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon quinoa flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
freshly ground seeds of 2-3 cardamom pods
dash of both clove and all spice
3 tablespoons coconut oil – melted
1 cup full fat coconut milk
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups finely shredded butternut squash
about 1 cup fresh cranberries
1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C). In a large bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, soda and spices. Add the coconut oil and work it in.
2. In a medium sized bowl, mix the coconut milk, sugar and vanilla extract. Add shredded butternut squash, mix to combine. Transfer the wet ingredients into the dry ones, add cranberries and mix to incorporate thoroughly.
3. Prepare a parchment paper lined baking tray. With a wet ice cream scooper, scoop cookies one at a time onto the tray, leaving some space in between them. Dip the ice cream scooper into a small bowl with water in between each cookie.
4. Bake for 25 minutes or longer, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Raw Cookies
2 cups oat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar – powdered
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
freshly ground seeds of 2-3 cardamom pods
dash of both clove and all spice
1/4 cup melted cocoa butter
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup finely shredded butternut squash
about 1 cup fresh cranberries
1. In a large bowl, combine the oat flour, sugar, salt and spices. Add in the cocoa butter and mix in thoroughly. In a small bowl, combine honey and vanilla extract, add to the dry mixture along with the butternut squash and cranberries. Stir to combine thoroughly, add water if needed, 1 tablespoon at a time.
2. Prepare a mesh-lined dehydrator tray. With a wet ice cream scooper, scoop the cookies onto the mesh screen one at a time, leaving some space in between them. Dip the ice cream scooper into a small bowl with water in between each cookie.
3. Dehydrate at 115 F for 24 hours or until dry on outside but still soft on the inside.
Tags: butternut squash, cookies, cranberries, recipe, vegan
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