Sweet-Tooth Friday: Two Flax Desserts

By: Christine F

Hi guys!  Christine here, checking in for your weekly dessert fix!  As you may know by now, I love a good baking challenge.  So when Matt did a review of some flaxseed from Flaxmatters.com and left a subtle hint for me to come up with a new flax recipe, I was totally in!  To be honest, he requested blueberrry flax energy bars, but since this week was my birthday I went ahead and made my favorite treat instead: oatmeal cookies!  And I didn’t stop there—I was so excited with the huge bags of flax I whipped up some homemade granola too.  With two recipes we have a lot to cover today, so let’s get started!

Vegan Oatmeal-Flax-Spelt Cookies

A cookie with some many healthy ingredients in its title may make you nervous, but these cookies are AMAZING!  They are now my ultimate favorite STF recipe to date!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar
• 1 1/2 cups ground flax seed
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups spelt flour
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup dried currants or other fruit

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the spelt flour, oatmeal, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Beat the coconut oil with a whisk until smooth.  You may have to microwave it to soften the oil a bit.  Whisk in the sugars, then stir in the flax seed.  Add the applesauce and vanilla and mix until uniform.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet.  Fold in the currants.

Using an ice cream scoop, place large mounds of cookie dough on a greased cookie sheet.  Flatten the cookies with your palm so they are about 3 inches across.

Bake for 16 minutes, turning the pan around about halfway through baking.  Makes 15 large bakery-style cookies.

Part of the reason these cookies are so yummy is because I used coconut oil in place of the butter from the original recipe, so they still taste luxiously indulgent like a bakery cookie.  I reduced the sugar down to my liking, but my brother said he would have preferred them a little sweeter, so you may want to add about 2 tablespoons more of each sugar if you’d like.  Since these are vegan, there are no worries about tasting the dough as you go along!  Applesauce works well here in place of the eggs by adding just enough moisture without competing flavors.

Vegan Blueberry-Flax Granola

Granola is one of those “kitchen sink” style recipes where just about anything goes.  I based the ratios of my version from the ones in “Even Husband Likes it Granola.” I intentionally undercooked mine slightly because I don’t care for really hard granola that scratches my mouth.  I also used rice syrup here since I invested in some last week and it lent a subtle sweetness without overpowering the rest of the flavors.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups oats
• 1 1/2 cups oat bran
• 1 cup ground blueberry flax
• 1 cup almonds, chopped
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup mixed dried fruit, chopped
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup brown rice syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Stir together the oats, oat bran, flax, almonds, coconut, dried fruit, cinnamon, and salt.

Combine the canola oil and rice syrup together and microwave for about 30 seconds.  Stir to combine, then microwave another 30 seconds.  Pour the hot mixture over the dry and stir to combine.

Spread on a greased baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, stirring up the mixture on the pan every 10 minutes.  Allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

This granola was excellent!  Much fresher, softer, and made with fewer mystery ingredients than most store bought kinds.  My only complaint that it was a little too crumbly- it worked fine as cereal but there weren’t enough large clumps for straight up snacking.  I think next time I may try to increase the canola oil by half a cup to help unify it better.  And I will definitely be making this again!

First Tastes of 2010: Pomelo

In sticking with my resolution, I am still trying one new food per week.  This week at my regular supermarket I spotted pomelos, otherwise known as Citrus Maxima. And the name is no joke- this is a huge piece of fruit, almost as big as my head!  My pomelo was delicious- it had all the flavor of grapefruit, just without the sourness.  They are considered in China to bring about good fortune, but I felt happy just to have tried it.

One more thing before I sign off—when researching flax recipes, I came across an interesting one for Banana Flax Pancakes.  I ran out of time to give it a whirl, but it is on my list for this weekend!

See you next week!

xoxo Christine