Description

Bursting with flavor, these oil-free, gluten free Vegan Carrot Cake Cookies are a delicious wholesome treat the whole family will love.

Ingredients

Scale

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats, chopped *
1 ¼ cup rolled oats, fine chop *
½ cup maple sugar *
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons flax meal
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon sea salt *

Wet Ingredients:

5 Tablespoons unsweetened plain plant milk – divided
3 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup unsalted almond butter *

Other Ingredients:

1 cup grated carrots
¾ cup chopped walnuts (or pecans) (optional)
¾ cup golden raisins (or regular raisins)

Optional Topping:

Sweet Cashew Glaze

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Line a baking sheet with silicone baking sheets or parchment paper, set aside.
Place 2 Tablespoons of flax meal into a small bowl, add 3 Tablespoons of plant milk, whisk, set aside.
Place 1 cup of rolled oats into a food processer, pulse for 10 seconds, then place into a large bowl.
Next add 1 ¼ cups of rolled oats into a food processor, process for one minute until the oats turn to flour (or almost flour), place in the large bowl.
Then add all the remaining Dry Ingredients into a large mixing bowl, whisk thoroughly to combine.
Add all the Wet Ingredients (including the flax meal/milk mixture) into the dry ingredients bowl, stir to mix, then add the remaining 2 Tablespoons plant milk. Mix well to combine, using your hands until the mixture forms a cohesive ball. Then mix in the grated carrots, chopped nuts and raisins. Use your hands to mix.
Scoop up 2 tablespoons of cookie dough, using slightly dampened hands roll into a tight firm ball and place onto the lined baking sheet, then slightly flatten into a thick disk. Try to keep the cookies in similar size and shape for even baking. Repeat until all the cookies are rolled and flattened.
Bake in a preheated 350 F oven (center rack) for 17 to 18 minutes. Remove and allow to set on baking sheet for 5 minutes to set up before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
Optional: When completely cool, drizzle with Sweet Cashew Glaze.

Notes

Tips for Success:

Use your hands to mix the dough after stirring in the wet ingredients. It will seem like the dough will not come together, but if you use your hands, it will. The dough should be sticky, but not overly sticky. Then mix in the carrots, raisins, and nuts with your hands.
Cookie rolling: When making the cookies, roll the dough into a tightly packed ball. This will help when flattening the cookie into a thick disk.
Silicone Baking Mats: We highly recommend using silicone baking mats to prevent the bottoms from overbrowning. We have not tested parchment paper lined baking sheets; however, we feel confident that parchment paper will work fine; however, instead of allowing the cookies to rest 5 minutes on the baking sheet, reduce the time to 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Baking Sheet: We used a large 14 x 20 baking sheet, then placed two silicone baking mats. We laid them vertically on the baking sheet, so that the silicone mats stuck over the edges a little. Just form the silicone mats to the baking sheet. They will stick up a little like an “L” on the wider end. This is fine. We place the side that sticks up like an “L” toward the back of the oven. If you don’t have a large baking sheet, use 2 small ones, but bake only one batch at a time.
Cookie Scoop: We used a small cookie scoop (1 ½ inches in diameter). This helped keep the cookies uniform.
Rolling Cookie Balls: Wash your hands in between rolling every 5 to 6 cookies so you can roll a smooth round cookie ball as some of the cookie dough tends to slightly stick to your hands.
Almond Butter: If you refrigerate your almond butter, then remove the recipe amount and bring to room temperature to ensure that the almond butter is evenly distributed throughout the recipe. Cold almond butter tends to clump up.

*Notes Continued:

*Rolled Oats: We used Bob’s Red Mill Rolled Oats (Whole Grain). This will not work with instant oats. We used rolled oats for both the chopped and fine chop. We separated them so you can understand that the rolled oats are divided and processed two ways creating different textures and dimension in the cookies.

*Medjool dates and Maple Sugar: We get tons of questions about sweetener substitutions. We totally get it. Some folks want to use Medjool dates, while others want to use all maple syrup. We’ve tried these cookies using all Medjool dates, they turned out gummy. We also tried using all maple syrup, they just didn’t hold up. Honestly, the best sweetener for this cookie recipe is the combination of maple syrup and maple sugar. ***We also get a lot of questions about using coconut sugar, if your diet permits, you can substitute coconut sugar for the maple sugar. However, we have not tested with coconut sugar; many of our readers have let us know that coconut sugar works well as a substitute for maple sugar.

*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Serving: Makes 21 to 23 cookies

*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 3 days, freezes well (without the glaze).