Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms

Author: Alissa Saenz

Prep Time: 20 minutes (plus 1 hour of chill time)

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup creamy natural peanut butter
• ½ cup vegan butter (softened)
• ½ cup organic brown sugar
• ¾ cup organic granulated sugar (divided)
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

For the Ganache

• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips
• 1 cup coconut cream (refer to pro tip #1 in the notes below)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375° and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the water and flaxseed together in a small bowl. Allow the mixture to sit for a few minutes to gel while you gather the rest of your ingredients.
3. Place ½ cup of sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, butter, and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Add the flax mixture, and beat everything together with an electric mixer on high speed for about 1 minute, until creamy.
4. Add the flour to the bowl, and sprinkle the baking powder, baking soda, and salt on top of the flour. Stir everything together until uniformly blended.
5. Place the remaining ¼ cup of sugar into a small bowl.
6. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls, then roll the balls in the sugar. Place them on the baking sheets, separated by about 2-inches.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the baking sheets from the oven and transfer them to a cooling rack.
8. Wait about 1 to 2 minutes, just until the cookies are cool enough to handle, then use your thumb to form an indentation on the top of each one.
9. Allow the cookies to cool completely.
10. When the cookies have cooled, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or by placing them into a bowl and microwaving in 30-second increments, stirring in between.
11. Stir the coconut cream into the melted chips. Allow the mixture to cool down a bit, to thicken. 
12. Spoon a dollop of ganache on top of each cookie. Allow the ganache to set at room temperature (about 1 hour), or chill to speed up the process.

Pro Tips:

-For the coconut cream, you can either buy a small can of pure coconut cream or purchase 2 cans of coconut milk. Refrigerate the coconut milk for 12 hours and the cream will rise to the top of the can and solidify. Scrape out the top layer for this recipe.

-To make this recipe fully vegan you will need to use organic sugar. This is because most sugars in the USA are filtered using animal bone char. However, organic sugars are not.

**Storage**

Store the cookies in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. You can also freeze them in an air-tight container for up to 3 months.