Nancy: This Vegan cookie is amazing! I didn't know Vegan could taste so good.

Frances: We have to plan a holiday cooking demo! This food is delicious!

I'm not Vegan but selected a healthy Vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe for the 9/24/16 cooking demo. As a group, we modified the recipe and made a chocolate raspberry cookie of rich chewy goodness that we served with homemade lemon ice cream.

Chocolate Raspberry Vegan Cookie

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups blanched coarsly ground almond flour
1/2 tsp. Celtic or organic sea salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup organic apple pear sauce (applesauce is fine, we used homemade)
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1/3 cup organic honey; add enough organic coconut sugar to make 1/2 cup total sweetness
1/3 cup 72% cacao dark chocolate 
1/2 cup toasted raw almonds, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh organic raspberries, cut into pieces

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Stir together wet ingredients (omitting raspberries until later) in a smaller bowl
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
5. Spoon 2 tsp. sized cookie dough on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (we used a 2 tsp. sized scoop)
6. Bake 13-15 minutes; cool and serve.

Lemon Ice Cream 

(Bummer, I didn't really get a good picture of the ice cream, and it was lemony-sweet deliciousness!)

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. finely grated organic lemon zest
1/2 cup fresh organic lemon juice
1/2 cup organic sugar
3 large organic eggs
2 cups coconut cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla (vanilla bean would be delicious!)

Directions:
In a 2-quart saucepan whisk together the zest, lemon juice, sugar, and eggs; whisk in 1 cup coconut cream and the vanilla; cook the mixture over medium heat stirring or whisking constantly until it just comes to a simmer (do not overcook!). Strain the custard through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing hard on the zest; add the remaining 1 cup coconut cream and whisk until blended. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, preferably overnight. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream freezer according to the manufacturer's directions. Makes about 1 quart.