Vegan White Chocolate Bottom Lemon Lavender Poppy Seed Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups regular flour, whole wheat flour, or gluten-free flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• generous pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons poppy seeds
• 1 tablespoon coconut cream powder (optional)
• ½ cup 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 3 tablespoons nut, soy, oat milk, or water
• 1 teaspoon culinary lavender
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• Zest from one lemon, divided
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon rice syrup or maple syrup
• 1 cup raw cane sugar or coconut sugar
• 1/2 heaping cup of white chocolate chunks or chips (I used iChoc white vanilla)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 175°C.
2. Add milk or water to a saucepan along with lavender and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and steep for 10 minutes. There’s no need to remove the lavender, you can just add them to the cookie dough.
3. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, poppy seeds, and coconut cream powder (if using) in a bowl.
4. In another mixing bowl, add the lavender-infused milk/water, coconut oil, tahini, vanilla extract, rice syrup, lemon juice, half the lemon zest, and coconut sugar. Using a hand mixer, mix together until the mixture is creamy and has thoroughly come together. This will take about five minutes. At first, the milk might separate slightly and it will look a little grainy but will become a smooth emulsified mixture after mixing.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until a smooth dough forms. If the dough is too soft I suggest putting it in the fridge for 30 minutes (I didn’t find this to be necessary though)
6. Using a large cookie scoop, scoop out 15 mounds of dough (I did this in two batches), onto a parchment-lined oven tray – leaving enough space between each cookie as it’ll spread a bit in the oven. Sprinkle the remaining lemon zest and some extra lavender over the top of each cookie. Bake in the oven for 9 minutes.
7. Once ready, let the cookies cool to room temperature and transfer to vacuum-sealed Tupperware. Store at room temperature or in the fridge (I find them tastier out of the fridge) for up to 4 days. 
8. If you want to add the white chocolate bottom, let the cookies cool to room temperature. Melt the chocolate on low heat in a saucepan. Holding the top edge of the cookies with your forefinger and thumb, coat the bottom of the cookie by swirling it around in the white chocolate. Lay the cookies upside down on a plate, cutting board, or tray to allow the chocolate coating to harden. I like to eat my cookies cold so I usually place them into the fridge right away which also speeds up the hardening process.

Notes

• If you’re avoiding gluten this recipe works just fine with gluten-free flour. Alternatively, you can also use regular (you will want to store the cookie dough in the fridge for 30 minutes in this case as regular flour absorbs less liquid than whole wheat) or oat flour.
• If you prefer a different nut or seed butter, it can be used interchangeably with the tahini. Keep in mind that it will impart a different taste. I recommend sticking to tahini, or going with cashew butter or almond butter as they don’t have as distinct a flavor profile as peanuts for example.
• If you don’t have any milk on hand, use water instead.