In my opinion, a good cookie should be thin and crisp on the outside but chewy and soft on the inside. Unfortunately, I have found many vegan cookies to be quite the opposite, rather big and cake-like.
That was until I discovered this vegan cookie recipe by Meera Sodha. She has managed to create a vegan cookie that is big and thin whilst also retaining its structure in the middle.
So I became a little bit obsessed with her recipe and found myself gradually tweaking it to experiment with flavours and the flour base. And this is where I ended up, with a vegan white chocolate & macadamia nut spelt cookie. Quite the mouthful, I know. So let me take you through the details of this incredible vegan cookie.
What are macadamia nuts?
I have been quite surprised by the number of people asking me this recently. I thought they were quite common, but apparently not as common as I first thought.
Macadamia nuts are like nature’s white chocolate drops. They are super creamy and buttery with a nice crunch, making them the perfect addition to a vegan cookie.
Baking cookies with spelt flour
I avoid most gluten products because they cause me loads of pain, but spelt magically does not!
So you may have noticed a bit of a spelt theme in my blog. Spelt flour is an ancient grain which is easier on the tummy than most plain and white flours. This is great if you have a sensitive tum like me.
In most recipes, I’ve made you can substitute spelt flour like for like plain flour. The same goes for this recipe, it works perfectly!
So if you don’t have spelt flour to hand, you can use normal plain flour instead. Or maybe give gluten-free flour a go but make sure to let me know how it goes in the comments section below!
Baking a vegan cookie
Making cookies vegan is super easy nowadays. When I first went vegan back in 2015, discovering a great vegan cookie recipe was like discovering a new planet.
Since then, we’ve discovered plenty of vegan egg alternatives, like Aquafaba, flax eggs, chia eggs, and much more! My favourite egg replacer is aquafaba because of it works so well in cake recipes (like my vegan carrot cake muffins), but in this recipe I am using an emulsified oil mix to bind the cookie. I have found it keeps the cookie thin and crisp.
Vegan white chocolate and macadamia nut spelt cookies
INGREDIENTS
- 75 g Organic sunflower oil - approx. 90ml
- 4 tbsp Water
- 2 tsp Vanilla bean paste - 1 tsp paste
- 150 g Golden caster sugar
- 200 g Spelt flour
- 3/4 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 40 g Macadamia nuts
- 100 g Vegan white chocolate chips - (optional)
METHOD
- Whisk up the oil, water and vanilla until fully combined and emulsified
- Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
- Break the nuts up into chunks and mix in to the flour
- Pour the oily liquid into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together
- Keep the mix in the bowl and place in the fridge for 30 minutes
- Line a baking tray with baking paper
- Preheat the oven to 180° degrees (fan)
- Spoon out 12 cookies from the mix and place evenly on a baking tray, making sure to leave enough space between each one as they expand outwards
- Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes until the cookies are golden brown and have crisped up slightly on the edges
- Leave the cookies to cool and then eat!
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