Vegan Pecan Sandies Cookies

Tonight I was craving cookies. Of course I ran to our pantry and looked for chocolate chips. Deception, deception: no more chocolate chips. So, I grabbed the next best thing: pecans.

Here is what you need:

• 1 1/4 cup gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup pecans
• 3 tbs maple syrup
• 5 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbs pistachio oil (or extra coconut oil)
• 2 tbsp almond milk
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

1. In a large pan, toast the pecans on medium heat for 10 minutes. You want them to be slightly toasted and fragrant. Remove from the heat and roughly chop them up.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients with your fingers or a fork. I find that using my hands to mix everything up works really well because it helps the coconut oil soften and bind everything up.
3. Roll the dough between two parchment paper pieces until it is 5mm thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out around 30 cookies. You might need to re-roll your dough a few times to get all of it cut out.
4. Spread your cookies on a lined cookie sheet and place in a oven set at 325F for 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool and store them in an air-tight container.

These cookies are crumbly, not too sweet, full of pecans, soft and very light. They really have that buttery feel that is so typical of sandies and other shortbread cookies. If you like these, you might want to give my coconut shortbread cookies a try too. Both of these are super satisfying and will make you forget that you’re out of chocolate. Yes! Let me know if you try them out!