I have an amazingly easy and delicious to share with you all today.
[photo courtesy of Practically Raw Desserts]
These Pecan Shortbread Cookies feature only 4 all-natural ingredients, and taste downright decadent. They happen to be just one of the many tasty recipes found in Chef Amber Chea’s latest cookbook, Practically Raw Desserts!
What I love about Amber’s latest cookbook, is her flexible and reasonable approach to food. Almost all of her recipes can be served raw or cooked, with plenty of substitution options offered for those with special diet restrictions or preferences. Her recipes are totally free of dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat, soy, corn, refined grains, refined sugars, yeast, and starch. Many of them are also free of oils, nuts and added sugars. There’s something in here for everyone!
Practically Raw Desserts covers everything from cookies and bars, cakes, pies, ice cream, puddings, candies, and more. Some of the easy and healthy recipes include:
- Confetti Birthday Cake
- Baklava Blondies
- Deep Dish Caramel Apple Pie
- Summer Fruit Pizza
- Dark Chocolate Sorbet
- Low-Fat Carrot Cake
As an added bonus, Amber’s recipes don’t require special equipment or difficult-to-find ingredients. (A chef after my own heart!)
The recipe below proves just how easy and delicious Amber’s recipes can be.
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Pecan Shortbread Cookies
makes 12 cookies
Recipe by Chef Amber Chea
Ingredients:
2 cups dry pecans
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
Directions:
Place the pecans in a food processor and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Do not to overprocess. Add the coconut flour and salt, and pulse to combine. Add the maple syrup, and pulse until the dough starts to stick together.
Make It Raw: Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a Teflex-lined tray. Use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the cookies to about 1/3 inch thick. Dehydrate at 110°F for about 4 hours, carefully flipping the cookies over onto a mesh-lined tray halfway through, until they feel dry and firm.
Make It Baked: Preheat the oven to 300°F. Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the cookies to about 1/3 inch thick. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until the cookies are dry on top. Let cool completely on the baking sheet before handling (or else they will crumble).
Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, in the refrigerator for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to a month.
From Practically Raw Desserts by Amber Shea Crawley. ©2013 Amber Shea Crawley. Used by permission from Vegan Heritage Press. Author photo by Stephen Melvin.
Pecan Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry pecans
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
Instructions
- Place the pecans in a food processor and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Do not to overprocess. Add the coconut flour and salt, and pulse to combine. Add the maple syrup, and pulse until the dough starts to stick together.
- Make It Raw: Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a Teflex-lined tray. Use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the cookies to about 1/3 inch thick. Dehydrate at 110°F for about 4 hours, carefully flipping the cookies over onto a mesh-lined tray halfway through, until they feel dry and firm.
- Make It Baked: Preheat the oven to 300°F. Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the cookies to about 1/3 inch thick. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until the cookies are dry on top. Let cool completely on the baking sheet before handling (or else they will crumble).
- Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, in the refrigerator for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to a month.
Notes
Nutrition
Per Serving: Calories: 160, Fat: 12g, Carbohydrates: 12g, Fiber: 2g, Protein: 1g
Hope you enjoy them!
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Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite type of dessert? I have many favorites, which include carrot cake, French silk pie, and freshly baked cookies!
*Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Practically Raw Desserts for review from Vegan Heritage Press, but I am under no obligation to post a positive review or to even mention this book on my website. Amber is a personal friend of mine, and I’m happy to support her cookbook and delicious recipes, especially since they meet all the standards I aim for in my own kitchen!
These look divine! I visit Chef Amber’s website frequently and just saw that she published her dessert cookbook. I need to stop procrastinating and just buy it!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for posting this! I have been craving shortbread for the past several weeks. I am newly (mostly) vegan and thought I would have to give up shortbread forever. I am making this asap.
Is there anything I can substitute for the maple syrup?
You could try agave nectar (if it’s something you consume), as it has a similar consistency. However, then the cookies won’t have that wonderful maple taste. To pump the flavor back up, you could try adding a dash or two of cinnamon!
These look so great and super easy!!!
Will they taste coconuty because of the flour? I can NOT stand coconut at all, so if they will what can I sub?
No detectable coconut taste, Connie! The coconut flour is there to soak up some of the maple syrup and thereby bind the cookies together. Flavor-wise, it only barely lends the slightest sweetness to the cookies, but with such strong flavors as pecans and maple in there (and considering coconut flour is so mildly flavored to begin with; it’s made of mostly just the fiber from the coconut meat), you won’t taste it. 🙂
Just ordered the book! So excited 🙂
These sound and look amazing!! I have been wanting to buy chef ambers dessert book for awhile and this gave me te nudge I needed:) headed to amazon right now! I absolutely love your book recommendations!! I have bought detox for women, breaking the cycle and the beauty detox solution and they are all really good reads!!! Thank you for sharing your recipes and I can’t wait to try this one!!
These look heavenly, but I’m not a pecan eater. Surely I could substitute walnuts? 🙂
Kelly – Yes! I haven’t tried it that way, but walnuts are my go-to sub for pecans at all times anyway, because they’re so similar in texture. Walnut Shortbread Cookies would be fab! 🙂
do you think that ground almonds would work. Walnuts and particularly pecans are very expensive where I live.
Sure, I don’t see why not! Hope you enjoy them. 🙂
yummmm!
they look delisious
I read this post twice. Can’t believe the recipe is so simple! 😀
I was wondering how you can dehydrate these in an oven? I think the lowest my oven will go is 170 degrees. Is that too high still?
I practically love all desserts but anything with chocolate especially…although carrot cake sounds lovely for a treat…it’s only 6:30 AM as I say this, kind of funny!
I love fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, and I wish I could find a healthy recipe that tasted as good as the ones that are so bad for you but taste so good! I also love blondies and anything with peanut butter and chocolate. Ooh, and cinnamon rolls, who doesn’t love fresh cinnamon rolls. Ok I feel like I’m gaining weight just thinking about it.
Nicole, I have many of the same favorites as you! There’s actually a wonderful (and healthy!) Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe in Practically Raw Desserts, as well as a BUNCH of blondie recipes (I’m sort of the blondie queen, hehe). 😉
I made these last night (the baked version). They are fantastic and so easy! Thanks for sharing!
Paula, I bet you could substitute agave nectar for the maple syrup.
Yay, so glad you liked them! 😀
These look great! Couldn’t you just eat them as is? Without dehydrating or cooking them? I have made a version of these with cashews and I just put them in the freezer. So good!
Jenny – Normally I give a “just freeze and eat” option with my raw cookie recipes, but this one has a particularly “wet” dough (and since it’s shortbread, I wanted the final product to be dry and crisp). However, if you prefer your cookies frozen, you might like them better that way anyway – I’d encourage you to try freezing them and see what you think! 🙂
I tested for Amber, and these cookies were one of the most loved by everyone I shared her treats with. SO GOOD.
O.m.g. These were amazing. Hubby liked them too!
This looks so yummy! I really want to try them, but I don’t have any coconut flour or almond flour, so I can sub it for ground almonds instead or shredded coconuts? Thank you!
Thanks Lulu! No need for almond flour for this recipe 🙂 Re: coconut flour, though, unfortunately the answer is no – coconut flour happens to be the ONLY ingredient in the book that cannot ever be substituted! Its properties are unlike any other flour or substance, so nothing can replace it. I get my coconut flour cheaply from Nuts.com!
These looks so delicious!! I can’t wait to try them out!
Mmm, I made these just now (baked). Forgot to flatten them. So they were kind of crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. Still good!!
Mmmmm these sound yummy and super simple to make, finally a raw short bread cookie!Can’t wait to try them 🙂
These are incredibly delicious. I love that there are only four ingredients! I made the baked version and they came out so moist and delicious. I’m going to have to freeze some so I don’t eat them all too quickly. Thanks for posting this!
Hi there! It looks delicious. But when you say ‘dry’ pecan, do you mean roasted pecan? Or should I use raw pecan? Thanks a lot !
I’m so excited to make these! I got a dehydrator for Xmas! I bet they’d be nice with a little bit of mesquite….
Hi my question is:Can this recipe be multplied ? I have a few boys from church that I would like to send Care Packages. They are away at University. So I really need more than a dozen. Probably 6 dozen would work. Time is a factor here. One of them has a Gluten-free diet along with no Citris Fruit.
Thank you
These were really good, thank you! I made the baked version and did not change a thing.
Can I use almond flour instead of coconut flour?
Coconut flour can never be substituted in a recipe. (It will be a disaster and a waste of ingredients!) It’s much easier to find a recipe that calls for almond flour in the first place– there are plenty of them on this site! 🙂
Thank you..I made the baked version yesterday (with the coconut flour) and they are delicious! I ended up with 2 dozen by making them a little smaller…because they’re very addicting! Great recipe!
In response to Mimi says, I just made 2 batches of these cookies and I did not have coconut flour so I substituted almond flour and they came out great. So yes it will work. I have made them with coconut flour and both work great. These cookies are amazing!!!
These were delicious, and so easy. I’ve how few ingredients these call for! I made them baked, and they were a hit!