ABOUT THIS RECIPE
These were made in a terrible rush – but, nevertheless, they deserve a post, because the flavour was just soooo yummy and satisfying. Crunchy and low in fat, and, even if you are watching your waistline, you can afford to treat yourself to one of these, and then take it easy on the carbs in the evening – it’s well worth it. Also, they are great for the winter months as oats are made to keep our bodies warm – hence a morning bowl of porridge. Kids love these too – I can certainly vouch for that with my 4 year old daughter. Oats and pecans are kind to your body, but the taste is even kinder to your palette. Let’s cook ‘em !
NOTE : They only take minutes to prepare, and minutes to cook in the oven. They are higher in nutrition than any other cookies you might buy from your food store/supermarket.
Makes around 8 largish biscuits.
INGREDIENTS
125ml canola oil
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp of boiling water
a pinch of sea salt
a few drops of almond essence
1 cup (90g) of rolled oats
¾ cup (65g) of desiccated coconut
½ cup of unbleached white flour
½ cup of wholewheat flour
¾ cup of white (vegan) sugar
½ a cup of chopped pecans
METHOD
- Firstly heat your oven to around 180C. Mix the maple syrup and oil together in a small bowl. Meanwhile, add the bicarbonate of soda to the boiling water and mix.
- Combine the oats, coconut, flours, sugar, salt and pecans in a large bowl and mix. Now pour the oil mixture into the oat mixture and mix. Then add in the bicarbonate water mix and the almond essence, and mix for a few minutes until ingredients have blended well.
- The mixture will be thick, and what you need to do now is to take a large handful of the mixture in the palm of your hands, roll it into a ball, then flatten and allow to rest on a greased non-stick surface (I used greased grease-proof paper on my surface). Leave some space between one biscuit and another, as they could spread with the oven heat and touch the next biscuit – it doesn’t really matter, as you can break them up easily once cooled.
- Place in the oven for 15 minutes, or until nice and golden. Allow biscuits to cool before you handle them. Remember they will not come out crunchy from the oven – it is the cooling process that does that for you !
TIP : Store in an air tight container.
All recipes and content © Miriam Sorrell www.mouthwateringvegan.com 2010
These are free recipes for your pleasure – all we ask in return is that you take a few moments to leave us a constructive comment !
im gonna try to make those. they look very delicious on the picture.
Hi Kristel, hope you enjoy them, they are rather crunchy and full of flavour. Have a great day & happy baking !.
What do you mean about white (vegan) sugare?
Pamela Hi again, not all sugar is vegan – and they sell different brands in different countries, so google ‘vegan sugar’ and see what you find to be sold in your part of the world. Meantime, if it’s any help I have the following for you:-
Most refined white sugar is processed over bone char and that rules it out as a vegan product. However, there are sugars that are not. These are the brands of sugar we know to be vegan:
Wholesome Foods
Florida Crystals
Hain Organic Powdered Sugar
Jack Frost
Supreme
Southern Bell
365 (the Whole Foods house brand).
You can use these tidbits to help you navigate through the sugar aisle: Beet sugar is vegan. Raw sugars or turbinado are also vegan. Other acceptable vegan sweetners include:
date sugar
rice syrup
fructose
corn syrup
succanat
barley malt
molasses
maple syrup
agave nectar.
Hope this helps !
This I made last christmas and was a hit and will have to make again.
Staci-lee Hi there and thanks for your comment – am delighted to hear that you enjoyed these cookies over Christmas, how wonderful. Look forward to your future comments here. All the best to you in the meantime.
Made these today as I am always looking for a healthy crunchy biscuit. These were crunchy and very nice even though I reduced the sugar, as I am trying to avoid it, to 1/4 cup and added 2 teaspoons Stevia instead. How do you think they will be with Agave nectar instead Miriam? And I would like to reduce or do away with the Bi-carb of Soda as that tends to leave an after taste. I also used Walnuts. The consistency of the biscuit was excellent. Thank you.
Hi there Maraika and thanks for dropping by here with your comment. I am not sure whether the agave would interfere with the texture outcome, but by all means try it. Walnuts or other favourite nuts should marry well. The Bi carb, may be you can use a little less. Hope this helps a little. Best to you !
I made these cookies today and they are very tasty but I encountered an unexpected problem. For some reason they all flattened and I have a big 9×13 cookie now. Do you have any idea of what could have gone wrong?
Hi there Danielle and welcome here. I am glad that you found these cookies to be tasty. Regarding the cookie size I don’t quite understand what you mean as you say they flattened and you have a 9×13 cookie – although it doesn’t sound ideal, you can always break them up into reasonable sizes so as not to waste them since they are tasty. Why they flattened is a mystery to me, could be a number of reasons – the 1st and obvious reason that springs to mind is opening the oven to check if they were ready and close it again – and then when they finally come out of the oven they would have flattened, the air fluctuates and can cause this in the same way that cakes also can flatten when we open the doors prematurely. I suspect that may have been the reason, but cannot say so with utter certainty. Hope this helps and that you enjoy my other recipes here. Best wishes your way in the meantime !
Thank you so much for your reply. What I meant by having a 9×13 cookie is that all the small cookies I made got so flat that they joined together and became like a pie crust, one big cookie the size of a whole pan. The oven was never opened 🙁 . I will try once more with less oil as it could have been the reason. Thanks again
Hi Danielle, that’s what I meant a large cookie, that’s why I said that you could have cut it up into acceptable sized cookies, just to save them, since you said they tasted good. Good luck, like I said before it’s difficult to pin point exactly what happened in the process to cause the problem. I do hope you try out some different recipes at some point. Best.
I definitely will. They all look wonderful!! Thanks for sharing them.
You’re welcome Danielle.
Hi Miriam!
I’m thinking of adding some dried fruit, perhaps apricot.
Do you think it might be a good idea? 🙂
Orit Hi there and welcome here. I don’t see why chopped dried fruit wouldn’t work with this. When this recipe bakes it usually merges so that you are left with a giant cookie which you then cut up yourself (as is the case in my pic), just wanted to make you aware of this in case you are thinking of gifting them. The taste is great and hope that you enjoy them. I look forward to your future comments on my blog !
Hi Miriam, would dried fruit work in these, cranberries etc? Also would vegetable oil work instead of Canola?
Hi Helen. Yes to both your questions. Enjoy !
Hi Miriam-
Your recipes look amazing! I don’t understand what it means to heat the oven 180%. I’m in the USA. Our recipe directions usually say to heat the oven to 350 deg F, for example. I can convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit but not from percentage. Please help!
Diana Hi and welcome. I think that the 180 is cellsius – a typo error is confusing so will change that. Thanks and hope you enjoy them !