I’m still eating vegan and still going strong! It’s been nice to get so much support from friends & family, but it’s also been (truly) not that big of a deal. Which is awesome! It’s a good feeling.
I’ve also really enjoyed making vegan versions of things, including those yummy peanut butter balls. Funnily enough, Angela of Oh She Glows made her own recipe for those that looks a whole lot healthier than mine but seems just as tasty! I wish she’d posted it just a week earlier…oh well, at the rate they’re disappearing in my house, I’ll probably have to make another batch soon enough, and maybe I’ll give her recipe a try.
In the meantime, I tried my hand at another old classic, the jam thumbprint cookie. I found the recipe on Keepin’ It Kind, a vegan website that actually hosts a virtual Christmas cookie swap every year! How cool is that? These are raspberry almond thumbprint cookies by Ketty of Luminous Vegans.
These cookies taste different than the non-vegan version, but since I haven’t had a regular jam thumbprint in a very long time, I can’t tell you exactly how they differ (helpfulness is my specialty, obviously). These are chewier, and taste deliciously of almonds, that much I know.
Ingredients
Makes 24 cookies
- 4 tbsp of solid coconut oil (don’t melt it!)
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup packed ground almonds (the original recipe doesn’t state if the ground almonds should be packed into the measuring cup, but I did and they turned out great. I ground my almonds whole and raw in the food processor.)
- 2-3 tbsp almond milk (I found I needed a bit more almond milk than the recipe called for to hold the dough together)
- ~2 tbsp jam of your choice (I used a summer fruit jam)
Set your oven to 350F. Mix together the oil, sugar and extracts until you get a consistency similar to creamed butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix your dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and ground almonds.
Incorporate the dry ingredients into the sugar and oil mixture. It will probably not seem to come together very well, but after you add the almond milk it should form a dough that holds together when it’s squeezed. Knead the dough and shape it so it forms a ball.
Roll the dough into approximately 1 inch balls. Now for the fun part! Use your thumb to press indentations into the cookies. If they crack a little it’s okay, that’s part of their rustic charm don’t cha know.
Bake for 6 minutes in the preheated oven. Then remove the cookies and use the back of a teaspoon to press the indentations in again, as they might have flattened out during baking. Then spoon about a 1/4 tsp of jam into each one. Bake for another 6-10 minutes (mine took around 10 more) until they are slightly browned around the edges. Sprinkle with powdered sugar!
My house is slowly becoming dangerously full of delicious vegan treats. Yikes! Happily, they’re so tasty that even the non-vegans who live here are eating them too.
