Guilt is not an obligatory ingredient for a chocolate dessert. These yummy and easy to prepare mint chocolate cookies by Sharna McElligott of The Nourished Eatery are better than any sweet treat out there, yet they’re light and healthy! By the way, along with many other Tauranga cafes, The Nourished Eatery is now open for delivery and contactless pick up – check out where else you can order your favourite food.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup vegan butter
- 1⁄2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 11⁄4 cups flour
- 1⁄4 cup cocoa powder
- 1⁄2 cup icing sugar
- Few drops peppermint essence
- Tiny amount of melted almond butter or milk
- 1⁄2 block dark chocolate
METOD:
- Preheat oven to 180°C and line two trays with baking paper.
- Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and fluffy. Sift flour and cocoa powder and stir into butter mixture until fully combined. Spoon a tablespoon of mixture at a time onto the trays and flatten with a fork (they’ll spread slightly in the oven so leave enough room between each cookie).
- Aim to have about 9 cookies on each tray. Bake on the middle oven rack for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave on the tray until cooled.
- Prepare peppermint icing: combine icing sugar, peppermint essence and almond butter or milk in a bowl and mix until creamy – this should be quite thick. If you’ve added too much liquid, keep adding icing sugar until the mixture is a spreadable consistency. Spread icing over cooled cookies, then set in fridge for 20-30 minutes until hard.
- Melt chocolate. Spoon the melted chocolate over the peppermint cream and cool to set.
IN OUR CABINET, SHARNA MCELLIGOTT
In Our Cabinet is a book of vegan recipes by Sharna McElligott, the owner of well-known vegan café The Nourished Eatery in Tauranga (114 Willow Street). Most of the dishes from the book are prepared at the café on a daily basis. thenourishingbaker.com
