Delicious Healthy Pumpkin Carrot Cake Cookies with ZERO added refined sugar and THREE of your five-a-day – you can feel great about eating these and giving them to kids too, and they taste like a warm autumn hug!
Today I’m sharing a brand new cookie recipe that is really, honestly GOOD FOR YOU! Can you believe it? They have three of your five a day right in the cookie – carrot, courgette, and pumpkin!
I LOVE developing new recipes which take out some of the less healthy ingredients and still taste awesome – it means I can feel better about enjoying cookies as a regular part of my diet (ahem, very regular!).
These cookies use coconut oil instead of butter. The health benefits of coconut oil are well established, and I just love baking with it – as well as having it around the house to use as a moisturiser and deep hair conditioner! I buy this virgin organic coconut oil – it’s the best value one I’ve found.
These Healthy Pumpkin Carrot Cake Cookies are deliciously autumnal – they’re packed full of pumpkin, cinnamon, carrot and courgette, plus yummy toasted pecans and chocolate chips! The pumpkin cinnamon pecan flavour really does make them taste like a warm autumn hug!
Soft, tender and chewy – these cookies taste like all the best bits of carrot cake in cookie form… and no one will guess there’s no butter or refined sugar! If you’d like to make them even healthier or give them to small children, you could also swap the dark chocolate chips for raisins – but I’m a firm believer that dark chocolate is good for you!
These cookies contain carrot, pumpkin and courgette – THREE of your five a day! The veggies are grated and added to the batter along with the pumpkin puree, and as with a regular carrot cake, you can’t taste them – they just make the cookies wonderfully moist.
These healthy cookies are so easy to make – just combine the wet ingredients and beat, then add the shredded carrot and courgette and stir in the dry ingredients. I like to use an ice cream scoop to scoop the cookies out onto the baking tray.
The veggies in these cookies help them to stay moist for an entire week – if they last that long!
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 egg
- 120ml runny honey, agarve nectar or maple syrup
- 150g - about a third of a can - pumpkin puree
- 90g grated carrots - about 2 large carrots
- 70g grated courgette
- 100g jumbo dark chocolate chips or chunks
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 100g jumbo rolled oats
- 200g wholemeal flour
- 1.5tsp baking powder
- handful pecans - for studding the tops of the cookies with
- 1tbsp cinnamon
- Start by mixing your wet ingredients. If the coconut oil is solid, warm it gently in the microwave until warm and liquid, then stir in the honey, egg, vanilla paste, and pumpkin.
- Next, in a food processor or by hand, grate the carrot and courgette and stir into the wet mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips, oats, flour, baking powder and cinnamon, scraping the bottom of the bowl and mixing thoroughly until everything is incorporated. Pop the mixture into the fridge to chill for 45 minutes to an hour.
- To bake your cookies, preheat your oven to 160C/gas mark 4/325F and prepare two large baking sheets with non stick liners - I used my silicon mat.
- If you have one, use an ice cream scoop to portion out cookie batter onto the tray, keeping the cookies 2 inches apart - they won't spread much though. Stud the tops of the cookies with the pecans, and more chocolate chips, if you like.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes until starting to very slightly brown, then leave to cool completely.
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If I can’t get hold of Coconut Oil can you recommend an alternative? Many thanks
Am very keen to try these, but can’t get hold of canned pumpkin puree where I live – would fresh pumpkin work? Do I have to cook it first?
Looking forward to hearing back from you
You would have to make your own pumpkin puree, which takes a while – if you google it a tutorial will come up. You can order cans of it on amazon too!
I’m all about a healthy cookie 🙂 I would even make these for Charlotte!
Diane @ Life of Di. recently posted…September: Currently.
These look delicious and healthy too!
Jo of Jo’s Kitchen recently posted…Forever Summer Strawberry Milkshake
They look fab – I’m always looking for ways to use pumpkin and anything sweet is always a plus 🙂
Stephanie recently posted…The Creative Spaces at John Lewis, Oxford Street
Ooh elicious, these look so good Kerry and packed with natural sweetness.
Angela x
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain recently posted…Rich Fruit Cake
Your carrot cake cookies look delicious Kerry. I love the idea of adding the veggies, a really yummy guilt free snack.
Sarah James recently posted…Oriental Sesame Salmon
Cookies that contain not one veggie but three?! Sign me up 😉 haha those sound great!
Liz @ I Heart Vegetables recently posted…Quick & Easy: Black Bean and Corn Quesadilla
Whoo these look so yummy Kerry, I could just try one of these now!!
Clairejustine oxox (Clairejustineoxox) recently posted…Creative Mondays Blog Hop..
These look fantastic – I’ll have to dig out my stash of dairy & soya free dark chocolate to give them a proper bash. I can guarantee they’ll be made by the weekend!
Penelope recently posted…Chewy apple and sultana flapjacks: dairy free
Yay! My kinda cookies! It was lovely to meet you this weekend and talk to you about these very biscuits 🙂 They sound fantastic.
Kate @ Veggie Desserts recently posted…A Day Out At River Cottage
My mum loves carrot cake Kerry. I try to find different ways to make it for her and I knowed she’d love these!
Stuart Vettese recently posted…Scottish Treats To Get You Inspired
Ooo yummy! This recipe reminds me of some vegan cookies I once baked out of a recipe book in France, they were totally delish!
Rachel recently posted…The Adventure Overland Show 2015