These vegan walnut date and chocolate cookies are a high-fibre take on a very dependable nut-based biscuit recipe that’s really good for dunking in your tea.
Ground walnuts and some wholemeal flour give them a wholesome speckled appearance. More chopped walnuts, along with chopped dates and chocolate provide lots of flavour and create an interesting chewy and crunchy texture.
If you keep the same, or almost the same, quantities of ground nuts, flour, maple syrup and coconut oil, you can adapt this recipe to all sorts of combinations: Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies and Orange Chocolate and Almond Cookies are a couple of examples.
I used light amber walnuts in the pictured biscuits, which is the second darkest colour classification for walnuts (confusingly, the range is extra light, light, light amber, and amber). The light amber variety seem to cost a bit less and have a slightly rougher texture, but they have a really rich flavour so they are a perfect partner to dark chocolate.
vegan walnut date and chocolate cookies…
ingredients
- 100 g walnuts
- 200 g self-raising flour (a 50/50 mix of white and wholemeal works well)
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 80 g dark chocolate, chopped
- 80 g dates, chopped
- 90 g light muscovado or other brown sugar
- 75 g mild/flavourless coconut oil
- 80 ml maple syrup
method
- Set the oven to 180°C/360°F and line two baking trays – enough for twenty to twenty-four medium-sized cookies.
- First, warm the maple syrup in the microwave and stir in the coconut oil. Set aside to allow the oil to melt.
- Grind half of the nuts in a mini processor or coffee grinder until they form a rough flour – it doesn’t matter if there are a few chunks of nut left.
- Place the ground nuts in a bowl and add the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Whisk to combine thoroughly. (If the ground nuts have formed a paste, you can rub the mixture, pastry-style, to remove any lumps.)
- Chop the remaining walnuts and add these to the flour with the sugar and the chopped dates and chocolate. Stir through until everything is evenly distributed.
- Pour the syrup and oil mixture into the dry ingredients stirring as you go to create a sticky dough. (If the maple syrup is still quite hot, leave it to cool a bit or it will melt the chocolate.)
- Use your hands to roll small balls of the dough, perhaps 2.5 to 3 cm across, and place these on the baking tays, with a bit of room to spread. (They will expand to around six centimetres.)
- Flatten the tops just a little with the back of a spoon before baking for up to fifteen minutes, until they have expanded and are starting to turn a little browner at the edges.
- Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
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