Anyone who’s seen my early blog posts knows that I have a major sweet tooth. Although at one point I tried to cut out all sweets from my diet, but right now, I’m practicing “middle way eating,” or as my friend Court calls it, “the every thing in moderation diet.”

This is why I heart cookies. You can make them as big or small as you like, and refrigerate the dough so that you only make what you want to eat at the moment. So you don’t have to completely deprive yourself; you get the sweet treat, but in moderation, of course. Plus when you add fruit and nuts to a dessert, that totally makes it healthy, right? 🙂

Oh, and shout out to California Walnuts for sending me the nuts I used to make this tasty treat! Maybe we’ll even see a Como Water recipe on their site soon??? Hint, hint!

Apricot Walnut Cookies

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1/2 Earth Balance (or butter, margarine)–softened

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar–packed

1/2 teaspoon each vanilla, orange, coconut, and almond extracts

1/3 cup soy or almond milk–unsweetened

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 cup toasted, roughly chopped walnuts

1/3 cup (heaping) diced dried apricots

walnut pieces–garnish (optional)

Method:

*Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

*Cream together Earth Balance, sugars and extracts in large bowl. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together soy milk and oil. Add soy milk mixture to the creamed Earth Balance mixture.

*In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir in coconut and diced apricots. Add dry mixture to “wet” mixture. Stir well. Refrigerate at least 15 minutes before baking.

*When ready to bake, drop a teaspoon of dough onto cookie sheet. Top each cookie dough ball with a walnut (optional, but pretty!). Bake 6-11 minutes (depending on how big you make the cookies), or just until bottom of cookie is golden brown. Enjoy!