At times I want a biscuit that is crunchy, gives a lovely snap as you take a bite. This time I wanted a cake textured one. Something a bit different too. I went through my batter splattered recipe book and discovered rose biscuits I had made up last year. They had ground almonds and rose, which is such a great combination and a lovely Turkish Delight flavour. I thought with the addition of some apple puree they could gain a soft texture- perfect for what I fancied!

I am not too sure what to call these. Hence the clumsily named post 🙂 Might come back when my head is in a space where I can make a decision and commit on a title.

Rose Cake Cookies vs Turkish Delight Biscuits

• Two dessertspoons of apple puree at room temperature
• One generous dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
• One dessertspoon of blanched almond butter.*
• Four drops of a food grade rose oil or one dessertspoon of rose water
• Half a teaspoon of vanilla powder or one teaspoon of vanilla extract
• Third of a teaspoon of almond extract- just enough to give a hint of flavour
• Three dessertspoons of dark agave
• One dessertspoon of coconut blossom sugar ( if unavailable you can use rapadura sugar )
• Half a cup of ground almonds
• Half a cup of wholemeal spelt flour
• One teaspoon of aluminium free baking powder
• A small pinch of Himalayan pink salt or good sea salt (eighth to quarter of a tsp )

*You could use cashew nut butter if you do not have this. Do not substitute normal roasted almond butter it has a very different flavour. Blanched almond butter is a pale sweet wonder of a nut butter with a light creamy flavour. Closer to cashew nut butter than a whole skin almond butter.

Preheat the oven to 150C/ 300F. Prepare a baking tray. This recipe makes roughly 12- 14 biscuits / cookies.

These are super easy to make. One caution though- make sure the apple puree is room temperature or your coconut oil will go all solid and not mix properly. I was impatient. I had to stick the perspex bowl in the preheating oven for a few mins so everything would melt together!

Get two bowls. In one add your coconut oil and blanched almond butter and mash them together. Add your almond extract and mash again.

If using rose oil add this now. If using rose water add this after the apple puree.

Add your agave and coconut sugar and really go to work on the ingredients. With energy combine the sweeteners with the fats until it is almost fluffy. Add the apple puree and mix again.

In your other bowl get ready to add the dry stuff. Add your ground almonds and press out any lumps. Add the spelt flour and vanilla powder (if using vanilla extract then go back and mix it into the wet ingredients!)

Now get a sieve and sieve in the baking powder and salt. Lumpy baking powder bits are a horrid thing to come across in a biccie. 😦

You will notice the dough texture is rather wet. More like a cake batter in fact! This is gooood, all is going according to plan! Maniacal laughter of making nice things to share Narhaahahha ha! Ahem.. yes the recipe.

By the teaspoon plop the dough/ batter on to your baking tray and give them a press down so they are a few mm thick ( approx. .10 of an inch). They will only spread a tiny bit, but just incase do leave a cm (under half an inch) gap between them.

I had a peek at nine minutes and took the opportunity to turn my tray around. They were done at twelve minutes. Leave them completely cool before eating. This is because they will continue to cook on the tray for a few minutes. Also if you eat them straight away the rose flavour is predominant. When they have cooled the rose calms down and the other flavours come out.

Turkish Delight will always remind me of my Nana. When I visited her she often had a round tin in the dresser. As an extra treat my sister and I would be offered some. She was an excellent baker and as you will know from other posts has inspired me. She taught my Mum how to bake and I grew up having the most excellent chocolate cake every birthday. Now I want cake! Vegan chocolate cake recipe coming soon!!

Hope you try them out. Xs Aissa