Every time I make my homemade almond milk, I swear that I am going to do something amazing with the leftover almond pulp. Enter Vanilla Almond “Sugar” Cookies Made from Almond Milk Pulp! Most times I put it in the fridge with really great intentions and plans, then within a few days it has mold and I feel horrid throwing it out. Happens way more often that I would like to admit. Almond pulp has to get used up within a day or two, so if you can muster up the motivation to do something with it, you have to do it quickly. This time as soon as I finished making the almond milk I started looking around online at different recipes I could use the pulp in. I have seen many recipes for savory crackers made from the almond pulp, but since this time the almond milk (and therefore the almond pulp) that I made was sweetened and I added vanilla, I wanted to make some type of sweet cookie. I still want to play around with a cracker recipe, too. So hopefully soon.
These cookies have a really great vanilla flavor and they are delicious with an ice cold glass of almond milk, or a mug of hot tea or coffee. If you want to skip the chocolate and sea salt on top, go for it, I just felt like it was the perfect compliment to them, who doesn’t love chocolate? These cookies are subtly sweet and reminiscent of a classic sugar cookie, but without all the junk. Side note, even after baking and making dozens of different sweet treats and smoothies, etc – sweetened only by using dates, I am still completely amazed by them. Who knew those funny looking little things could be so sweet and sinful. The sweet nuttiness from the almond pulp is so delicious and pronounced in these cookies, it’s really one of my favorite flavors. After eating a bunch of these, I started thinking about different ways I could play with this recipe. I think you could add cocoa to make a chocolate cookie and I also think a spicy gingersnap version of these cookies made with ground ginger and cinnamon would also be delicious, so I will definitely have to play around with both of those.
Just a quick note, the original recipe has an option to dehydrate these cookies to make them “raw”, but since I don’t have a dehydrator and I was making these at night and wasn’t comfortable leaving them in the oven overnight, I just baked them as the recipe also suggests. The bake time can vary a bit depending on how moist your pulp was when you started, I think mine ended up baking for nearly 30 minutes, but I would suggest checking them around 18 or 20, since you don’t want them to dry out or burn.
[print_this]Vanilla Almond “Sugar” Cookies with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt – Gluten-free, Vegan + Refined Sugar-free
Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies
Recipe adapted from Choosing Raw
- 2 cups almond milk pulp
- 8 soaked and pitted medjool dates
- 1/3 cup almond or coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- dash of sea salt
- 1/4 – 1/3 cup melted dairy-free dark chocolate (I melt unsweetened bakers chocolate and sweeten it with a little maple syrup and/or stevia, you can use semi-sweet chocolate chips or whatever your favorite chocolate happens to be)
1 teaspoon course sea salt
Preheat the oven to 350º F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Add the almond pulp, dates, coconut flour, salt and vanilla extract into a food processor and process until the “dough” is the same texture and consistency of sugar cookie dough, or there about. You may need to add a little more flour, depending on how moist your almond pulp was to start.
Using your hands, make small little round balls with the dough (about a tablespoon or so each) and line them up in rows on your parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Press each one down very gently using a fork. (the original recipe called for using a fancy cookie press, but since I don’t have one, I improvised)
Bake cookies for about 20 – 25 minutes, or until golden brown. This time may vary depending on how moist your cookies are. Just keep checking on them so you don’t burn them or dry them out.
Allow the cookies to cool totally then drizzle the dark chocolate over top of each cookie and sprinkle a small amount of seat salt on each cookie.
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19 Responses
I just found your blog on pinterest. I am doing a happy dance!!! I love it. Your recipes don’t seem to be complicated and they look fabulous as well as tempting. I’m off tomorrow to buy almonds for my own almond milk. Who knew??
xo
lynn
I freeze my almond pulp, so if I can’t think of anything to do with it straight away, it keeps well frozen 🙂 These look delicious (I’m a sucker for anything with chocolate involved), I actually have an almond pulp experiment in the dehydrator at the moment – great minds, huh?
Brilliant idea to freeze the pulp. Never thought to do that. Thanks for the idea. Can’t wait to see what your pulp experiment is 🙂
Yay! These look great! Now please create a recipe for juicer pulp cookies, lol.
Btw, I toast my almond pulp in the oven until its dry. Then you can store it in a glass jar in your pantry and use it like breadcrumbs, or in cookies or whatever.
Thanks for the recipe, (which I found on pinterest)
emily
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Yum! These look delicious! I usually dehydrate my pulp in the oven for about 6 hours on warm (I don’t have a dehydrator, obviously) then I whir it in a coffee grinder and use it as flour in pancakes and cookies. I was trying to find something to do with it in it’s ‘raw’ form and came across your recipe. I’ll definitely have to try it out. 🙂
Thanks Lauren! Great idea on using it for flour! It just pains me to throw it away, so I love doing whatever I can to use it up. Thanks for the suggestion. I hope you like these if you try them out.
Just started making my own almond milk. I have a batch of pulp as I speak in the fridge with no idea what to do with. Thanks for the recipe. I’ll definitely try it out.
I might try these again using an egg. They were really dry and didn’t bind well. The chocolate helped bind and made the taste. Not an experienced baker so may have missed something.
Hi! I discovered the same thing. When using coconut flour, you have to add more liquid because it is extremely absorbent. I first added almond milk to make up for the coconut flour dryness. Then, I melted some coconut oil and honey to add to the dough (with some cardamom and more vanilla), and that helped to bind them. They held together better after that.
How long should the dates soak?
Just until soft almost a little gooey. So that will depend on how dried they were. Sometimes they need very little soaking at all. 30 mins or less.
Ok, so… I just made these.
First of all, these things are packed with flavor and are remarkably sweet considering there’s no added sugar. (I didn’t even use sweetener in my almond milk, leading to the creation of unsweetened almond pulp.)
However, for me these came out quite dry. The “batter” was so dry that I couldn’t really press the balls down at all. I just used a tablespoon to pack the cookies into half-spheres and tapped them out into my palm before placing them gently on the parchment paper. They taste great, but they’re so dry that I don’t think I could eat them without the help of a nice cup of coffee — but I’m not complaining! I love to have nice things to eat alongside my coffee.
Do you think it would be better to add egg or oil to the batter to get it to a moisture level that’s more manageable? Or, do you think it would be best to squeeze less liquid out of the almond pulp to being with, or use less flour? Those are the only ideas I can come up with. …
My chocolate drizzling failed miserably, but I’m actually thinking that was serendipitous. These cookies have really great flavor on their own, and I think it would be overpowered by the awesomeness of chocolate.
I always have trouble with the “drizzling” of chocolate. I’m trying to eat refined-sugar free, so I tried melting Baker’s Chocolate with maple syrup. It always gets clumpy and is never really drizzle-able or even pourable. Am I heating it too fast? Not hot enough? Any tips?
Thanks for inspiring me! I love this blog.
Hi Elaine, thanks so much for reading and for your great response. It has been a while since I have made those, but working with almond pulp can be very tricky since it really does depend on how much moisture you are able to get out and what is left in. I find that it makes recipes like these vary significantly every time you make them. I definitely recall making these once and having them be a bit try. You can definitely try the egg or oil, I am not sure how it will come out however, so please do report back if you do.
As far as chocolate melting goes, using just bakers chocolate can be very very tricky. I find using a double boiler over a low heat, so it isn’t over a direct heat is the safest way. You can go directly into a heavy saucepan, but use a very low heat and once it starts melting take it off the heat and continue stirring until it is all melted. Adding a little coconut oil helps sometimes if it has seized up and starts clumping, but only a very small amount, like 1 tbs to approx 1 cup of chocolate. Additionally you might want to try adding the maple syrup in at the beginning as adding in liquid after it has melted can also cause it to seize up on you. Here is a great article on melting chocolate http://candy.about.com/od/workingwithchocolate/a/chocmistakes.htm Hope all of this helps a little. Thanks again for reading Elaine!
I just made this recipe and it is absolutely DELICIOUS! The cookies are just the right consistency and the chocolate drizzled on top is perfect. Thank you very much.
Great Samia! I am so glad you enjoyed these. It has been some time since I have made them. I definitely need to soon! Take care.
I’m in the middle of making these cookies. Can’t wait!
I found that I needed to add the soaking water along with the dates in order to get the dough to hold together. Is this what you intended? If so how much water should that be?
I’m baking half a batch to see how they hold up. Might add a flax egg to the second half.
Thanks for your input!
Thank you for posting this. Sometimes it’s just a pain to dehydrate it and then keep it around. I’d rather just cook it up and be done with it. Hugs from the other side of the continent (FL).
Thank you,I will try to do it.
I never tired of cookies, These cookies looks awesome!