It's a New Year and our dear friend and vegan pastry chef, Valentina Cordero, is here to delight us with a new recipe: Vegan Dragonfruit Sandwich Cookies. The perfect guilt-free treat to make for your family or for yourself. Enjoy!
INGREDIENTS (for cookies)
- 2 sticks of vegan butter such as Earth balance
- ½ cup Monk fruit powder such as Lakanto (substitute for powdered sugar if you prefer)
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons vanilla paste or 1 vanilla bean
- ½ grated tonka bean
Extras:
- 3 tablespoons Pitaya plus powder
- 3 tablespoons cacao powder
DIRECTIONS (for cookies)
- On a stand-up mixer add the vegan butter, monk fruit powder, vanilla & salt.
- Mix slowly.
- Once it's well mixed and soft, add maple syrup and grated tonka bean.
- Add flour and mix, until dough feels well incorporated.
- Divide the cookie dough in two equal parts.
- Add 3 tablespoons of cacao to one half of the cookie dough and mix. (you can do this by hand or on mixer)
- Add 3 tablespoons of Pitaya plus dragon fruit powder to the other half and mix.
- Take 2 sheets of parchment paper (one for the bottom, and one for the top) and place dragon cookie dough in between the sheets).
- Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough until about 0.5 inches thick.
- Flatten chocolate dough using the same process.
- Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough to form the cookies, if the dough is too soft place in the fridge for 5 min before cutting.
- Place the cookies on top of parchment paper or silpat on a baking sheet pan two inches apart.
- Preheat oven at 350
- Bake cookies at 350 for 11-15min.
- Take cookies out of the oven and let them cool completely before filling.
Pitaya Plus Dragon ganache filling
INGREDIENTS
- ¼ cup cacao butter
- ¼ cup almond paste (I use JOI organic almond base)
- ¼ cup Pitaya plus bite size cubes
- 2 tablespoons of Lakanto monk fruit powder ( you can substitute for powdered sugar if you prefer).
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS
- Using a bain marie melt cacao butter.
- On a metal bowl, using a whisk, mix melted cacao butter with JOI almond paste until well combined.
- Add maple syrup, powdered monk fruit and pinch of salt.
- Add Pitaya plus dragon fruit bite size cubes, mix all ingredients well until combined.
- With the help of a spatula or a spoon, proceed to add the dragon filling into the cookies.
- Dust the sandwich cookies with Pitaya plus dragon fruit powder, cacao powder and edible flowers, enjoy!