Healthy Almond Cookies - 3 Ways (Option 1: Italian/Mexican wedding Cookies, Option 2: Almond Crescent Cookies, Option 3: Refined Sugar Free "Sugar" Cookies) (Vegan, GF, RSF, Natural, Nut-Free Option)

Happy (belated) Holidays, Happy New Year, and Happy (belated) Valentines! I am back with a whole bunch of new cookie recipes, and this next one is a fun one. One batter can be used to make three drastically different cookies. The first is a healthier take on an Italian/Mexican wedding cookie. Soft, fluffy inside, not too sweet, infused with almond, and dusted with a powdered maple sugar-coconut milk powder mixture. Roll the cookie dough balls in coarsely chopped almond for an "almond snowball cookie" option. The second choice for these cookies is almond crescent cookies (except these ones are made without the almond flour!). These little crescent-moon-shaped cookies are essentially the same as the wedding cookies, just in a different shape. Lastly, the final form of these morphable cookies is a significant upgrade of my date-sweetened "sugar" cookies (texturally, flavor-wise, and appearance-wise). These vegan gluten-free cut-out cookies are soft-baked, buttery, lightly sweet, and have a delightful almond-coconut flavor. PLUS, the cut-out cookies are as easy as stirring all the ingredients together in a bowl and rolling them into a sheet before cutting out with cookie cutters and baking. And the icing is clean- no sugar, no dyes, no dairy, no nasties. And this healthier royal icing is truly something. It sets at room temp beautifully, is so sweet, almond-y, and maple-y, and colors beautifully. It can be used to flood cookies, pipe precise lines of icing, or can even be used at a buttercream-like consistency, perfect for achieving texture for Christmas tree or pinecone cut-out cookies. These cookies are perfect for Thanksgiving, the winter holidays, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, or for special occasions. And even better? You do not have to flavor them almond, you can infuse them with whatever flavor you want or just leave them plain! (so for those of you with a nut allergy, you can just omit the almond extract to make these cookies nut-free *although please do note: they will still contain coconut). So what are you waiting for? Go make these delicious, healthy, easy, and beautiful almond cookies any of the 3 ways!

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The season of cookies continues, so they do here too on The Dimpled Date! This time it is a recipe that can be turned into Italian/Mexican wedding cookies, almond crescent cookies, or an improved version of my sugar cookies! My OG sugar cookies recipe was rather dry, not super sweet, and they were not the most attractive cookies or photos (plus they had erythritol in the icing. Ew).

But the days of learning better photography techniques, how to improve texture, flavor, sweetness, and appearance, and learning that artificial sweeteners are not all that great for us have come, and thus, this is my improved recipe (a significant upgrade for cut-out cookies, if you ask me).

Yet these "sugar" cookies (or wedding cookies or crescent cookies) are still 100% vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar free, and naturally colored using superfoods (or natural food coloring). There isn`t even sugar in the royal icing and believe it or not that`s not powdered sugar the wedding cookies are rolled in! The royal icing is sweetened with maple syrup and maple sugar and the coating for the wedding cookies is unsweetened coconut milk powder + powdered maple sugar! It makes for the perfect white, light, and cleanly sweet powder coating.

The icing is maple-y, rich, and sweet and the cookies (however you make them) are almond-forward, (vegan) buttery, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, and soft-baked. And whichever version of cookies you make using the batter, they`re easy, quick, and fun to decorate!

Out of the iced cookies in the photos which is your favorite? Let me know in the comments! My personal favorites: the snowman with the green-and-red striped scarf and the Christmas wreath on his hat, the light green Christmas tree with tinsel, the cursive/loopy brown-and-white candy cane, and the blue and yellow star (see above)

You can decorate your iced cookies however you please btw! Shape of cookies, icing colors, and design are all up to you! If you want to get really fancy, you can break out the cookie scribe, stencils, and edible glitter if you desire (the icing is very adaptable and can be brought to a piping consistency, flooding consistency, or a stiffer, frosting-like consistency to bring texture to the cookies).

As for the wedding cookies, you technically do not have to roll them in anything at all. If you want to though, you can use the coconut powder-maple sugar mixture that I used or you can use unsweetened coconut shreds, or even chopped/ground almonds (use coarsely chopped almonds for more of a studded/encrusted almond "gem" appearance. Use finely ground almonds for more of a dusting/accent on your cookies). If you are wanting the powdered mixture on the outside of the Italian/Mexican wedding cookies, wait until AFTER the cookies are baked and then dunk them in the powdered mixture. If you coat the dough balls in it before putting them in the oven, the cookies will just absorb it during baking, so wait until after. If using nuts or coconut to coat the cookies, roll them in the ground nuts/shredded coconut BEFORE baking, so they can stick to the cookies.

And for the almond crescent cookies, again you can coat them however you wish, but another area of customization is the shape. They can be a crescent/moon/"doodle" shape or be formed into any other shape you desire prior to baking. I am also working on an almond flour/date-based variation of the almond crescent cookies (and the wedding cookies) to make it closer to a traditional recipe. Well, at least the almond flour makes it more traditional, the dates are just because I can`t resist squeezing an unnecessary fruit into a simple cookie recipe 🤪 Right now, the only thing making the almond crescents almond crescents is the almond extract, so stay tuned for a traditional almond flour version.

These cookies are perfect for so many occasions. The "sugar" cookies are wonderful as Christmas/Hanukkah/winter holiday, Valentine`s/Galentine`s, Easter, or Halloween cut-out cookies. And the wedding cookies and crescent cookies work particularly well for holiday gatherings, events, or just as an everyday treat.

...but enough of all this jabbering- let`s skip to the good stuff (esp. since this is my first post in a LONG time)!!

Thanks for checking out these refined sugar free sugar cookies/wedding cookies + see you at the next market or in the next recipe post!

For those of you who are local, I will be at the Princeton Farmers Market on Thursday March 16th from 11 am-3 pm! Stop by for your favorite healthy goodies!

Hope you like this recipe!

As always,

Enjoy <3

-K. 🎄