Preparation Soak almonds in water at room temperature for two hours.
For the cookie dough After soaking, place the almonds, pears and dried apricots in the blender and puree until smooth. Add the agave syrup and oat flakes and mix well.
In the original recipe, the author uses honey, which we replaced with agave syrup because it is not vegan.
Finely chop the cinnamon stick. You can grate it finely or grind it in an electric coffee grinder. Add the ground cinnamon to the almond-pear-oat mixture. Mix well again.
If you want to grind the cinnamon stick in the electric coffee grinder, we recommend drying it first in a pan without oil to reduce moisture and make the cinnamon stick more brittle.
drying the cookies Form the mixture into cookies and place them on a Teflex or dehydrator tray. Dry the cookies in the dehydrator for four to five hours. The drying time depends on how soft you want the cookies to be.
Detailed Nutritional Information per Person for this Recipe
The majority of the nutritional information comes from the USDA (US Department of Agriculture). This means that the information for natural products is often incomplete or only given within broader categories, whereas in most cases products made from these have more complete information displayed.
If we take flaxseed, for example, the important essential amino acid ALA (omega-3) is only included in an overarching category whereas for flaxseed oil ALA is listed specifically. In time, we will be able to change this, but it will require a lot of work. An “i” appears behind ingredients that have been adjusted and an explanation appears when you hover over this symbol.
For Erb Muesli, the original calculations resulted in 48 % of the daily requirement of ALA — but with the correction, we see that the muesli actually covers >100 % of the necessary recommendation for the omega-3 fatty acid ALA. Our goal is to eventually be able to compare the nutritional value of our recipes with those that are used in conventional western lifestyles.
These almond cookies with cinnamon, oat flakes and dried apricots have a high energy content. They are ideal with tea or as a snack between meals.
Soaking almonds: Soaking almonds not only changes their consistency, but also reduces the amount of phytic acid. This forms solid complexes with certain food substances such as minerals and thus limits their absorption by the body. You can find a corresponding article on this at the following link: Phytic acid or phytate and soaking or sprouting.
Dried fruit is often sulphurised: Treating dried fruit with sulphur dioxide has two advantages for large-scale industrial producers: firstly, the sulphur coating helps prevent rotting as it inhibits the metabolism of many microorganisms and thus improves the shelf life of the product, and secondly, it preserves the colour of the fruit. The latter is achieved, among other things, by sulphur's ability to inhibit oxidation-promoting enzymes. Although this makes the fruit more visually attractive for many customers, we generally advise against sulphurised dried fruit. There are several reasons for this: the preservation process destroys some vitamins, such as folic acid, and sulphur can also have health consequences for asthmatics and allergy sufferers.
Cinnamon: Cinnamon is a spice made from the dried bark of cinnamon trees. Cinnamon owes its aroma mainly to cinnamon oil, which consists of 75 percent cinnamaldehyde. In Europe, cinnamon is used as a spice mainly for sweet dishes and drinks, but in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine it is also often added to hearty dishes. The cheaper cassia cinnamon or Chinese cinnamon in particular contains high doses of coumarin, which is harmful to health. Since the amount of coumarin in the better Ceylon cinnamon is only about a hundredth of that, this is preferable.
Agave syrup: Agave syrup (agave nectar) used as a sweetener is easily soluble in both cold and warm substances. It is a good alternative to honey for vegans. Alternatively, you can use dates to sweeten it. Strict raw foodists should be careful, however, as agave syrup cannot be classified as "raw" depending on the definition of the upper limit of raw food temperature. For example, there is "raw" agave syrup that, according to the manufacturer, is thickened at 45 °C.
Oat flakes: Oat flakes have a high protein content and contain many essential amino acids. They are also rich in vitamins and minerals. Since conventional oat flakes are no longer strictly considered "raw food" due to heat and steam treatment, you can use oat flakes made from pre-germinated oats if necessary. The germination process used here makes the oat flakes more digestible and at the same time increases the bioavailability of their valuable ingredients.
Alternate preparation
Honey instead of agave syrup: In the original recipe, the author uses honey, which is not strictly vegan. If this is not a big deal for you, you can replace the agave syrup, or another plant-based sweetener, with the same amount of honey.
Natural raw food variant: If you want a variant that is guaranteed to be raw and delicious, we recommend sprouted oat flakes instead of conventional oat flakes. There are also raw (below 42 °C) processed oat flakes in good organic quality, but the sprouted variant provides more of the ingredients available to the body. The sweetener, agave syrup, can also be replaced, as its raw food quality is usually questionable, as is compliance with the harvest and processing standards in the respective growing countries that are advertised by many suppliers.
