Raw Vegan Halloween ChocoVanilla Cookies
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Hi lovelies,
Wow. Can you believe that we are *almost* at the end of October?! Didn't it just start like, yesterday?
Luckily this time of year is my absolute favorite and that distracts me from the fact that, time flies!
Initially my goal was to launch this blog on December 1st of this year, but then I made a bunch of super cute halloween-inspired recipes that I really really want to share with you all and so I decided "what the heck" let's make the site live right now!
So here it is - today is officially the launch day for sproutingzen.com! Yay. HBD SproutingZen!
If you aren't following me on instagram yet, go go go add me now @sproutingzeneats because for the next five days I am going to be posting some spooky fun vegan treats.
Today's recipe is all about cookie cutters (affiliate link) and natural food coloring. These babies are all raw, all vegan, no bake, no sugar added, AND oil free. YAY.
You'll need a set of Halloween-ish cookie cutters, and natural food coloring. I bought my cookie cutter set on Amazon and I have included a link above. As for the food coloring - feel free to use your own food coloring or play around with foods to see what natural colors you can come up with for the cashew icing.
At the bottom of the recipe I include some ideas as to what foods produce which colors. Eventually I will write down a guide or recipe to make natural food coloring but I haven't really perfected it yet. So play around with the colors and see what you come up with!
Also, I want to see all of your Halloween treats so tag me in your pictures!!! And leave a comment below. Thank you.
The cookie dough is an adaptation from this recipe here that I found on Amanda Nicole Smith's blog.
Halloween Chocolate Vanilla Cookies
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 15 cookies 1x
Ingredients
for chocolate layer:
- 1 cup of pecans or walnuts (or a mix of both)
- 1 cup of shredded coconut
- 8 to 10 dates
- 1/2 cup of cacao powder
- pinch of pink himalayan salt
for vanilla layer:
- 1 cup of dry cashews (if you like to soak your cashews, you’ll have to dehydrate them before using them for this recipe.)
- 1 cup of almonds
- 5 to 6 dates
- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
- pinch of pink Himalayan salt
For cookie icing
- 1 cup of cashews (soaked for an hour)
- 10 dates (soaked)
- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
- juice of half of a lemon (about 1 tbs)
- 1/4 cup of water (you may need more depending on your blender)
Ideas for natural food coloring:
- Turmeric powder or blended mangos for yellow
- carrot juice or fresh papaya fruit for orange
- dragonfruit powder for pink
- matcha green tea powder for green
- butterfly pea tea for blue
Instructions
Instructions for cookies:
- To make chocolate layer: Add all chocolate ingredients to a food processor and process until a sticky thick dough forms. It will take a few minutes but you will see that the mixture will begin to stick along the walls of the food processor and look like a dough. Basically, if it still feels crumbly process it a little longer.
- Using your hands, press down the chocolate mixture on top of some parchment or wax paper to form a rectangle or a square, (see pictures). Set in fridge to cool down.
- To make vanilla layer: Add all the vanilla ingredients into the food processor and process until a thick dough forms. Same as above. The mixture will be ready once it begins sticking along the sides of the food processor.
- Press down this mixture on top of chocolate layer as evenly as possible covering all the chocolate. Set aside in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes to allow it to harden before cutting.
- Now it’s time to form the spooky shapes! Remove cookie from freezer and using your favorite Halloween cookie cutters (affiliate link) form your desired shapes.
- Reuse the left over cookie dough by rolling it into a ball and then flattening out on top of parchment paper again – this time the chocolate and vanilla layers should be mixed and it creates a cool blended color effect. Create more cookies with this left over dough.
- Repeat the steps until all or most of the dough is used up! Any left over dough that is too small for cookie cutters can be rolled into small balls or bars.
- Place freshly cut cookies back into the fridge (or freezer if you want them to harden quicker) while you make the icing and colors.
To make vegan cookie decorating icing:
- Rinse and drain cashews and add to blender along with dates, vanilla extract, lemon juice, pinch of salt, and water. Blend until smooth. Add water as needed but remember this is an icing so you do want it to be quite thick.
- Using a piping bag (you can also cut the tip of a zip lock bag and use that as a piping bag) decorate your cookies as you desire with the cashew icing. 🙂
If you are using natural food colors make sure to add the powder or fruit to the blender while you’re making the icing. Also, if you are using a juice (for example carrot juice for orange) then don’t add water, just add the carrot juice or else it will be too watery.
If you look closely at the pictures you will notice I used chocolate chips as eyes. You can find the recipe for those sugar free, oil free, cacao chocolate chips here once it goes live.
Notes
- If your cookie icing comes out too watery, simply add more cashews to the mixture. You’ll end up with more icing but at least it will thicken up!
