Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Spice Cookies Recipe (gluten-free)
Have you made my vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies? If you’re new here, do not hesitate. They are fantastic! They’re a staple around here and definitely one of the more healthful (less bad for you?) cookies I’ve tried. I love that recipe so much I decided to tinker with it and make a fall version with pumpkin puree and delicious spices like cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Amazing! It’s like pumpkin pie meets an oatmeal cookie. And as much I love these cookies fresh out of the oven, they are just as delicious raw. That’s right, as in cookie dough. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. After I posted my secret pumpkin oatmeal cookie dough addiction on Instagram, my students started stealing the bowl out from under my nose during class and having a taste themselves! The benefits of a vegan dough.
I thought I would sneak this recipe in today before you start baking treats for Halloween. Of course, these are perfect during the entire season of fall and beyond. They’re a snap to make and like many cookie recipes, you can prepare the dough in advance and bake as many or as few cookies as you need. I like these best the day they’re made and even the next day. Because there’s pumpkin in them, they get a little soft after a day.
This recipe ended up being more flexible than I imagined. I had to try it with a nut other than walnuts one day for a student with a walnut allergy and pecans worked great. I haven’t tried this recipe with sunflower seeds, but I think it would work if you need to go nut-free. The sunflower seeds just might react with the baking soda, however, and cause the cookies to have a green-ish color to the them. Might be kind of cool for Halloween! I know many of you will want to sub chocolate chips for the raisins and I say go for it! Pumpkin + chocolate + spices isn’t my thing, but that doesn’t mean you won’t love it. I was serving these in my classes plain and simple, but I found a recipe for a fun sweet potato-cream cheese frosting that was delicious as a filling if you wanted to make a sort of oatmeal cookie whoopie pie. Just for kicks.
However, like I always say, just because these cookies are higher quality and not made with junk and chemicals doesn’t mean you can eat them all day long. Concentrated sweeteners can still raise your blood sugar and will still feed yeast and fungus in your system and will keep you addicted to sugar. So with the beginning of the season of sweets, which I say starts on Halloween and ends on New Years Day, I try to be conscientious about not going crazy when I am offered candy and treats galore. But before we start thinking about 2014, we’ve got lots of fun in store. Thanksgiving is indeed four weeks from Halloween which means you and I are going into planning mode pronto. See you all back here on Thursday!
Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Spice Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups oat flour see Step #2 (use certified gluten-free oat flour if you are gluten-free)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- Pinch ground nutmeg
- 1 ¾ cups raw walnuts or pecans
- 6 Tablespoons unrefined coconut oil it doesn’t need to be melted
- ¼ cup 100% pure maple syrup grade A or B
- 10 Tablespoons ½ cup + 2 Tbs. coconut sugar or brown sugar
- 1 cup pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling (anywhere between ½ -1 cup works)
- 2 cups old fashioned rolled oats use certified gluten-free rolled oats if you are gluten-free
- 1 cup unsulphured raisins or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- If you need to make oat flour, place 1 ¾ cups rolled oats in a food processor and process until powdery.
- Place oat flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl and whisk together.
- Place walnuts in a food processor and blend into a fine meal. Add oil, maple syrup, coconut sugar and pumpkin and process until mixture has the consistency of natural nut butter.
- Stir walnut mixture into flour mixture. Fold in 2 cups rolled oats and the raisins.
- Use a 1 ¾ -inch ice cream scooper to form dough into balls, and place on baking sheets. You can fit 12 on a sheet. Flatten cookies slightly with a damp hand. Bake 13-15 minutes or until cookies begin to brown and tops look dry.
- Cool a few minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
(adapted from "Feeding the Whole Family") 1 cup mashed baked sweet potatoes
¼ cup softened cream cheese or soft tofu (2 ounces)
1 Tablespoon melted unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon fresh lemon or orange juice Cream together all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor or with a mixer until smooth and spreadable.
12 Comments
Hi Pamela!
I just made these as a test run for my sons Bar Mitzvah this weekend. I need help! Mine crumble very easily. Did yours?? Wondering if you have any ideas on how I can fix it. What if I just added an egg? They don’t have to be vegan for our crowd. The flavor is so delicious I hope I can make them work.
If not, I’ll just make your chia cookies – they are amazing! Or your millet brownies. So many great recipes! Thank you!
Hi! Mine have never crumbled, so I’m not sure why that would be. I find them to be a bit tender, actually. I suppose you can add an egg to help bind them. Or if you want something pumpkin, try the pumpkin chocolate chip bars. You can make them today and freeze them. Then defrost the day before in the fridge. 🙂
These cookies are so good, thank you. I substituted quinoa flour,added nuts and cranberries. So excited to have a cookie I can eat!
such great substitutions! thank you for sharing 🙂
I’m out of walnuts and want to make another batch with my pumpkin puree. could i use almond butter or any other sub for the walnuts?
Pecans work great!
Excited to try these! I love your vegan chocolate chip cookies and make them often with dried fruit instead of chocolate chips. I’m wondering if these pumpkin cookies can be made with just maple syrup (like the chocolate chip cookies) as opposed to syrup and sugar. Perhaps the dough would be too wet with all syrup plus the pumpkin? Thanks!
Tried it with all maple syrup — too soft! I actually think you can probably make these with all coconut sugar or maple sugar, but I never got around to testing them that way.
These sound wonderful. Just out of curiosity, can they be made with only using the oat flour instead of also adding the oats (for someone who has digestion challenges?)
Also, speaking of the “beginning season of sweets…”, (to keep with healthier desserts), do you think the wonderful peach jar dessert can be switched out with apples?
I think they’d be a little flat and soft without the oats. Perhaps you could try quinoa flakes or quick-cooking oats instead, although I haven’t tried it with a substitute for the rolled oats. You can definitely sub apples for the peaches, just cook them a little longer so they soften up!
Sweet potato frosting?! I must try this! Frosting that’s GOOD for you.
It’s fun and the taste is great! Not sure how good for you cream cheese is, but I’ve seen worse frostings. 😉