Vegan + Gluten-Free Christmas Cookie Recipes
Bry left our Friday night plans up to me sooooo (healthy) Christmas Cookie Bake-off it was! This is such a great idea for a "staying-in" date night. Now that it's cold we've been having a lot more of those. We try to plan something fun and different so that we feel like we're actually doing something even if we stay in. It usually involves cooking (we've had a few cauliflower pizza parties and then a movie or netflix-binge but the cooking a new recipe part is what makes it more exciting). I'm not going to lie...Bry was not the least bit excited about this cookie bake-off at first. I had to bribe him to do it but he ended up getting so into it and competitive. We had a family Christmas round 1 the next day so it was the perfect time to experiment with some healthy cookie recipes and then try to convince our family that they weren't vegan and gluten-free (those words that usually scare most away).
I picked 3 cookie recipes and let Bry pick which one he wanted to make. The line-up...
- Whitney E. RD's White Chocolate Cranberry + Pistachio - we swapped brown sugar for coconut sugar
- Rachlmansfield's Super Doughy Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Rachlmansfield's 10-minute Almond Butter Cookie
...he chose the White Chocolate Cranberry so I made the other two. They were all delicious but the family favorite was...
Bryan's White Chocolate Cranberry! Of the three, this was definitely the most "Christmas-y" of all them all.
Personally, I'm a chocolate chip cookie girl so my favorite was probably the super doughy chocolate chip. I used a small scooper to make them and would probably hand roll them next time for less of a round macaroon shape and more of a regular cookie shape.
The 10-min Almond Butter was also good but had the least going on compared to the other two with either dark or white chocolate chips. Note - normally I would not make a cookie using chocolate chips (added sugar) for myself but I felt like I had to jazz it up because I was cooking for a group (and also needed to trick them into thinking it wasn't overly healthy). This one tasted more like a "protein ball" which I love snacking on but I think that it was a little bland for everyone else.
My overall recommendation would be to make "Bryan's" White Choc Cran Pistachio for Christmas, to make the Doughy Choc Chip for anytime other than Christmas, and to make the 10-min AB to snack on (with more of the mentality that it's not a cookie).
Enjoy!
