sunflower seed butter and cookies

One thing I really miss now we are a peanut free home is peanut butter cookies. I stumbled on a recipe for sunflower seed butter and made some straight away, then I thought, oooh sunflower seed butter cookies!! In the US I understand you can buy jars of sunflower seed butter but I have yet to find it here but until then…..Sunflower seed butter is pretty simple to make;

You need;

1 cup of sunflower seeds
oil (sunflower/ olive)
a little salt and/or sugar to flavour

Put the seeds into a food processor/blender and blitz until you have as fine a powder as you can manage (mine was a little “bumpy”, but I didn’t mind that). Then simply add the oil a tbsp at a time until you reach a thick paste consistency. Taste and season/ flavour as you wish, I used a little salt and vanilla sugar.

The above recipe made about a cup of sunflower seed butter which worked out just right for the cookies recipe. The recipe contained egg so I used this egg replacer and they turned out so well.

* with the sunflower seeds I put them into a bowl, add a tbsp icing sugar then mix with wet hands until sticky. These have a great sugary crunch to them and Ollie enjoyed eating them as they were.

Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies

1/2 cup vegan butter at room temperature
1 cup sunflower seed butter, chilled
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
egg replacer for 2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour
*sunflower seeds, for garnish

Preheat oven to 170°c

Beat the vegan butter, sunflower seed butter, and both sugars until fluffy. Add the egg replacer, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mixing well. Gradually add the flour in 1/2 cup increments, beating until fully incorporated to a stiff cookie dough.

Roll into 1 1/2″ balls and place a couple inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Using a fork, press down on the ball in a criss cross pattern. Add a pinch of sunflower seeds to the top and push into the dough a little. Bake for 10 minutes and let cool on the baking sheet for a minute or two before removing to a wire rack.