Making it Whole Series: HOLIDAY SUGAR COOKIES

Taking the best vegan recipes on the net and making it the from plants, whole plants, and nothing but plants

*THERE IS A VIDEO COMPANION TO THIS RECIPE WHERE YOU CAN WATCH ME MAKE THE CASHEW CREAM, DATE PASTE, AND COOKIE DOUGH. SCROLL DOWN TO FIND IT.*

I love great recipes, great cooking, and sweets. And I found this fabulous sugar cookie recipe that immediately broke my heart, because the first ingredient was a ridiculously large dollop, nearly a full cup, of “vegan butter.” Might as well say “pure fat” because that’s all it is. And it’s not even close to a whole food. It’s ultra-processed crap and nobody ought to eat it.

If a “recipe” calls for vegan butter or vegan mayonnaise or vegan anything else ultra processed, is it really a recipe at all? To me, cooking means from scratch, from real, whole, recognizable ingredients with no Frankenfoods added.

So I took this recipe with its 3/4 cup “vegan butter” and substituted in my versatile and amazing cashew cream. I cut the sugar in half, and substituted date paste, which I show you how to make here, as well, and I eliminated the salt entirely. You can’t always do that, if it’s needed to make dough rise, for instance. But in cookies its purpose is supposed to be “to cut the sweetness and enhance the other flavors.” I like the other flavors just the way they are, thanks. And the sweetness—well, that’s kind of the point of cookies, isn’t it? Honestly, I think it’s really in every recipe because it’s been in every recipe for generations. It’s habit, not purpose.

I cannot stop finding new uses for this stuff! I have to add that peanut butter would also work, and might be a fun flavor option. Peanut butter sugar cookies. I’m making a batch of each today! And remember, this is NOT Jiff, Skippy, or Peter Pan, this is a jar of peanut butter without added oil or salt and only one ingredient—peanuts.

Let’s compare it nutritionally

CASHEW CREAM, NATURAL PEANUT BUTTER, VEGAN BUTTER

• Calories: Vegan Butter 200
  Calories: Cashew Cream 190
  Calories: Peanut Butter 190

• Fiber: Vegan Butter 0
  Fiber: Cashew Cream 1 gram

  Fiber: Peanut Butter 3 grams

• Protein: Vegan Butter 0
  Protein: Cashew Cream 4 grams
  Protein: Peanut Butter 8 grams

• Fat: Vegan Butter 22 grams
  Fat: Cashew Cream: 13 grams
  Fat Peanut Butter: 16 grams

• Saturated fat: Vegan Butter 6 grams
  Saturated fat: Cashew Cream 3 grams

  Saturated fat: Peanut Butter 2.5 grams

• Sodium: Vegan Butter 210 mg
  Sodium: Cashew Cream 5 mg
  Sodium: Peanut Butter 0

The cashew cream and peanut butter have the following vitamins and minerals:

• CC: 13 mg calcium (0% recommended daily value or DV)
  PB: 19 mg (2%)

• CC: 1.7 mg iron (10%)
  PB: 1 mg (6%)

• CC: 160 mg potassium (4%)
  PB: 203 mg (4%)

• CC: 0.26 mg vitamin E (2%)
  PB: 2 mg (15%)

• CC: 0.07 mg B6 (pyridoxine) (4%)

• PB: 6 mg niacin (B3) (40%)

• CC: 139 mg phosphorus (10%)

• CC: 0.06 mg thiamin (vitamin B1) (4%)

• CC: 20 mcg folate (4%)
  PB: 31 mcg folate (8%)

• CC: 74 mg magnesium (20%)

• CC: 3.3 mcg selenium (6%)

• CC: 0.23 mg manganese (10%)

• CC: 1.59 mg zinc (15%)

• CC: 0.65 mg copper (70%)

Now the list of vitamins and minerals in vegan butter

Drum roll, please!

VEGAN BUTTER VITAMIN AND MINERAL LIST (complete)

• 0.90 mg Vitamin A (10%)

Yep, that’s it and that’s all. And that isn’t there naturally, but artificially added, probably so they can legally put something like “enriched” or “a good source of Vitamin 1” on the label. The food industry is all a con game. You’ve got to become too smart to be fooled.

A look at the ingredients list is next

VEGAN BUTTER INGREDIENTS
Soybean oil, palm kernel oil, water, salt, soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, natural flavor, lactic acid, vitamin A palmitate, and beta-carotene for color

CASHEW CREAM INGREDIENTS
Cashews, water

PEANUT BUTTER INGREDIENTS
Peanuts

My 2nd adustment to the original recipe

The other change I made was to replace half the sugar with date paste. When we replace the sugar entirely with date paste, the cookies don’t spread or bake the same way. And since these are rolled cookies, texture is important. My thought here is that if we only replace half the sugar, we can get a nicer bake, reduce the calories and the sugar, and have a healthier-but-just-as-yummy sugar cookie.

*As a rule, 3/4 cup sugar in a recipe requires a full cup of date paste to replace, for a ratio of 1.25 to 1. Just add 25% more date paste than sugar.

3rd Adjustment

Obviously I’m not adding salt.

Fourth Adjustment to the original recipe

I’m not using “all purpose flour.” Hell, no! I’ll be using my whole grain, gluten-free flour blend, even though I have no issues with gluten personally. It’s just the best freaking whole grain flour ever used for baking, and it happens to also be gluten free.

At first, I just used whole wheat flour but it really isn’t as tasty as the special flour blend.

I’m putting everything here in one place for your ease.

Whole grain, gluten free, white flour

• 3 cups brown rice flour

• 1.5 cups tapioca flour

• 1.5 cups potato starch

• 1.5 cups oat flour

Mix thoroughly and use for baking

*Forks Over Knives adds 4 tablespoons ground chia seed to this blend, but I’ve found it works equally well if without it, if you happen to be out of it, which I am.

Cashew Cream Recipe

Demo in the video below

• 1 cup cashews

• Enough water to cover them

• 1/3 cup water for blending

I usually pour the cashews into a glass jar, add just enough water to cover, and soak overnight in the fridge. That part’s important. The next day, drain the water off and run them through the food processor or high speed blender, using the smoothie cup and adding more water back in as you go to get the consistency you want. We’re going for buttery-spread-smooth here. You might want it a little thicker or frosting or dip recipes. This is also the basis for my mac & cheese.

Date Paste Recipe

Demo in the video below

• 2 cups pitted medjool dates (they come with pits usually, but they’re easy to remove. Slice date down the middle, split it open, pop the pit!)

• 1/2 cup water

Pour into the smoothie cup of a blender and blend until smooth. That’s it.

Now, when I’ve bought from the bulk bins, the dates have been harder and dryer. If they’re like that, they benefit from an overnight soak in water just like the cashews. But I’ve found if I buy them in foil packets, they’re always soft and moist. If I find a hard, dry one in the packet, I set it aside. For the right consistency, you need soft, moist dates.

Vegan Sugar Cookies

Demo in video below.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup cashew cream

1/2 cup raw sugar

1/2 cup date paste

2 tablespoons soy or almond milk

1 tablespoon corn starch

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

2 to 2 & 1/4 cups whole grain GF flour blend (above) (Don’t add all at once, see instructions)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Parchment paper

METHOD

Beat together the sugar, date paste, and cashew cream, milk, cornstarch, vanilla, and almond extract in large bowl with hand mixer, or use stand mixer.

Mix the larger portion of the flour (1 & 1/4 cup) with the baking powder, stirring with a whisk to get it well-blended, then add to the batter and beat some more.

Add the remaining 1 cup flour. Don’t skimp on the flour. You want it thick as play dough, so you can roll and shape and cut out the cookies. They can’t be sticky or thin enough to spread on the pan. The flour given here is the amount in the original recipe, but I wound up adding nearly a half-cup more to get it where I wanted it.

Split the dough in half. Scatter flour on a large sheet of parchment paper and roll each piece of dough out to about 1/3" or so thickness, each on its own sheet. Put another sheet over the top of each section of rolled-out dough and stack the sheets of dough on top of each other. Refrigerate overnight.

*In the video, I was out of parchment paper, so I rolled the dough out onto the countertop just as a demo. But you should roll it directly onto sheets of parchment paper, then cover with another sheet. The video ends there, since I was in real time, and it still had to chill overnight, and I was already late. But I’ll have Part 2 this coming weekend.

AFTER THE CHILL

Preheat oven to 350. Put a silicone mat pr parchment paper onto a baking sheet.

Take the sheets of dough out of the fridge and let them warm for a half hour or so.

Cut with cookie cutters. Then smoosh the leftover dough together and roll it out again to cut more, and so on until you’ve used all the dough.

Bake for about 8 minutes.

NEXT TIME

We’ll bake the cookies and frost them. I’ll have a bunch of whole food, plant-based frosting in multiple colors and flavors. (It’s still not going to be a health food.)

Here’s the video!

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