Date-Sweetened White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (w/ Brown Vegan Butter) (Vegan, GF, Date-Sweetened)

Kelly
4 days ago
6 min read

More cookies! And this time around, they're date-sweetened! Made with vegan brown butter, macadamia butter, whole dates, date sugar, homemade white chocolate, and real macadamia nuts, these cookies are a tasty spin on a classic cookie. The cookie is soft, tender, nutty, sweet, and buttery and studded with chunks of homemade vegan date-sweetened white chocolate and raw macadamias. This is a truly yummy cookie that tastes like conventional white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. And these cookies are so simple and once everything is prepped, they come together quickly. More holiday recipes will be coming soon, but in the meantime, enjoy this year-round cookie staple.

Jump to Recipe

Going back to my roots with another date-sweetened recipe. And these cookies use such simple ingredients yet taste so flavorful. This recipe for my Date-Sweetened White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies is your next go-to comfort cookie.

As always, these cookies are 100% vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar free, and strictly date-sweetened, chocolate and all. Once you make the white chocolate and prep the ingredients, the recipe is very straightforward and comes together quickly. Of course, if you don't want to have to make your own white chocolate chunks, you can just use your favorite store-bought vegan white chips/chunks (refined sugar free as needed).

What cookie do you want to see me make next? Drop your suggestions in the comments!

Prep work for these Date-Sweetened White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

For this recipe, you'll need to make sure you have some date paste made up. To make date paste, simply soak 1 to 2 cups tightly packed dates (pitted) in hot water for 5-15 minutes. Drain off the water, then add the soaked dates to a food processor or high-speed blender (like a Vitamix) and blend until a paste forms, scraping down the sides and re-blending as needed to try to get it as smooth and creamy as possible. Alternatively, you can add 2 cups unsoaked dates (pitted) to a food processor along with 1/2 cup filtered water and blend until a paste forms.

For these cookies, you'll also need to make vegan brown butter. To do this: add the vegan butter to a small saucepan and melt over medium-low heat until liquified. Contain to heat the butter, stirring often, until a dense cloudy dark layer of vegan butter fat solids settles at the bottom of the pan and the rest of the butter is clear and golden. It will start to become a sweet caramely smell. Before all this happens, the vegan butter will go through different stages (liquid, bubbling, simmering, foamy + quiet, and then this stage). Keep cooking, stirring frequently, until the vegan butter fat solids are toasted, the transparent portion of the butter is a rich golden-brown, and the mixture smells very nutty, caramely, and sweet. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before using in the recipe. Technically, if you want you can simply melt the vegan butter instead without having to brown it.

And lastly, the other major ingredient you'll need to prep is the macadamia nut butter. Blend 1 to 1 1/2 cups raw unsalted macadamias in a food processor or high-speed blender (like a Vitamix) until a liquidy, smooth, shiny nut butter is produced. Stop the food processor periodically to give the machine 1-minute breaks and scrape down the sides before blending again. This could take a while. Just be patient, keep scraping, and eventually that luscious nut butter will be produced. Measure out the amount needed for the recipe and store the leftovers in a jar or airtight container in the fridge. Macadamia butter can be used in desserts, on top of porridge, pancakes, French toast, or waffles, or can even be used as a spread on top of toast. *I only say to blend more macadamia nuts than the amount of macadamia butter your need for the recipe because the machine you use to blend will require a minimum volume of nuts in order to blend properly.

Oh also: here is the recipe for my Date-Sweetened Vegan White Chocolate that you can use as the white chocolate chunks in this recipe! If you are not using my white chocolate recipe, you can use your store-bought vegan white chips/chunks/chopped bar of choice instead (refined sugar free, as needed).

Substitutions

Browned vegan butter

I highly recommend using this ingredient as it makes a wonderful nutty, caramely, buttery base for these cookies. But if you MUST, you can try substituting melted coconut oil with varied results (*PLEASE NOTE: I have not tried this and cannot guarantee good results). Alternatively, you can *try* using just 1 cup raw macadamia butter and NO vegan butter per single batch of this recipe, but I HAVE NOT tried this substitution and CANNOT guarantee good results (using this much macadamia butter in a cookie base could make the cookies too rich/fatty and too macadamia-forward). If you tried either of these substitutions (coconut oil or macadamia butter in place of the vegan butter), feel free to let me know how it turned out in the comments! And instead of browned vegan butter, you can simply melt the vegan butter just until liquified instead

Raw Macadamia Butter

use additional brown vegan butter OR a different mild nut/seed butter in place of the macadamia butter (such as raw Brazil nut butter, raw blanched almond butter, raw cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, softened coconut butter, etc.). I recommend using a different nut/seed butter over the vegan butter as a substitution for the macadamia butter because it will lend a nuttier flavor. But yes, vegan butter works just fine too. I highly recommend using raw macadamia nut butter, but roasted macadamia butter could potentially work too, just make sure it's unsalted (I haven't tried this though)

Date paste

instead of the date paste, you could try using an additional 1/3 cup date sugar for a total of 1 1/2 cups date sugar per single batch (but please note this could make the cookies drier and you may need to add in some plant milk to moisten the batter). I don't really have any other substitutions, as date paste is unique in that it's not a liquid/sticky sweetener like maple syrup but also not a dry sweetener like maple sugar. It's more of a water-rich paste which makes it tricky to give direct substitutions with sticky sweeteners and dry sweeteners

Date sugar

you can substitute an additional 1 1/4 cups date paste for a total of 1 1/2 cups date paste per single batch. Otherwise, you can replace the date sugar with maple sugar OR coconut sugar. If you can have refined sugar, you can even replace the date sugar with raw cane sugar (e.g. turbinado, panela, sucanat, demerara) for a low sugar option along with the date paste. If you're looking for a low-sugar or keto option for this recipe, try 1 1/2 cups of a 1-to-1 keto sweetener per single batch of these cookies, omit the date paste, use vegan keto white chocolate chips, and use 1/4 cup coconut flour instead of the oat flour

Vanilla extract

try scraped vanilla bean, ground vanilla beans (black powder/vanilla seeds), sugar-free vanilla powder (white powder), sugar-free vanilla paste (sugar scrub-like paste), OR sugar-free vanilla syrup. Instead of vanilla, you can try almond extract, coconut extract, maple extract, OR macadamia extract. If you must, you may omit the vanilla

Almond flour

try macadamia flour instead for a stronger macadamia punch (to make: grind macadamia nuts into a fine powder, but don't overblend or you'll get macadamia butter). Or you can replace the almond flour with tigernut flour, cashew flour, pumpkin seed (pepita) flour, pistachio flour, hazelnut flour, walnut flour, pecan flour, sunflower seed flour, OR Brazil nut flour

Gluten-free oat flour

try brown rice flour, white rice flour, millet flour, sorghum flour, quinoa flour, OR light (hulled) buckwheat flour instead. If the oat flour doesn't need to be strictly gluten-free, you can use non-gluten-free-certified oat flour

Sea salt

any variety of sea salt works, such pink Himalayan sea salt, fine Celtic sea salt, iodized sea salt, or even fine-grind alaea sea salt (Hawaiian red sea salt). Instead of sea salt, try table salt, iodized or regular. If you must, you may omit the salt, but it's highly recommended to contrast the macadamia nut flavor

Baking soda

try baking powder or apple cider vinegar instead

Homemade vegan/date-sweetened white chocolate

you can use your favorite vegan white chocolate instead (homemade or store-bought). Just make sure it's refined sugar free or keto as needed if going the keto route (see date sugar substitutions, above, for a keto + vegan white chocolate macadamia nut cookie option). If you want, you can omit the white chocolate. I don't recommend going milk or dark chocolate on this one only because the flavors are more delicate and the darker chocolates would muddy up the macadamia flavor

Raw macadamia nuts

instead of raw macadamias, you can use roasted or roasted + salted ones. If they don't need to be macadamia cookies, you can replace the macadamias with your nuts/seeds of choice, such as almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds (just make sure they're raw/unsalted and chopped as needed)

Future Recipes Sneak Peek

The once-every-three-posts "Future Recipes Sneak Peek" is back! Here, I preview 3+ new recipes coming to the website soon. Three new recipes making their way to the blog soon include: