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These easy vegan Baklava Cookies have all the flavor of the famous middle Eastern dessert! They are made with almond flour and therefore entirely gluten-free. A quick snack or dessert! Grainfree soyfree recipe. Can be oilfree
A good book, a cup of coffee, and a plate of freshly baked vegan baklava cookies – that’s what your perfect fall afternoon could look like.
Clearly, I love my almond flour cookies, see these snickers cookies, molasses cookies, and chocolate thumbprints! And I love the flavors from baklava! See my baklava cake, baklava lassi.
So it was just a matter of time before I came up with a bite-sized version of this famous Levantine dessert and could not be happier with how they turned out.
Seriously, you got to try these Baklava cookies!
I took my easy almond flour cookie base and added a bit of lemon zest and topped it all off with a mixture of dates and nuts. These are soft and delicious and utterly addictive.
Why am I making these with almond flour and gluten-free? I don’t have a problem with eating regular flour. But since I made the almond cookies, I just love the ease of the recipe, there’s no beating the butter and sugar, you just need 1 Bowl and a spoon for the dough. There’s limited sugar. Almond flour adds protein and fiber and makes for a wholesome and less carb cookie. The texture is amazing. It’s basically an awesome cookie which happens to be gluten-free and vegan!
Why you’ll love these cookies
- They aren’t very sweet or buttery. They need just a bit of maple syrup and oil.
- they can be made Oilfree with more maple syrup
- They are much easier than making baklava
- they are also much easier than making the regular cookies which need beating loads of butter and sugar
- they smell heavenly
- they are chewy, soft delicious and shelf stable. Great texture!
- they are gluten and grain free and vegan(eggless and Dairyfree)!
More vegan cookies you will love:
Gingerbread Cookies ; Gluten-free & Grain-free
Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies Gluten-free
Vegan Baklava Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 cup almond flour, , blanched superfine works best. Natural almond flour will work as well
- 3 tablespoon tapioca starch, or use potato or corn starch (or use 2 tbsp all purpose flour if ok with gluten)
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon powdered sugar, or cane sugar
Wet ingredients:
- 1 tbsp refined coconut oil, measure in semi-solid state, melt before using , , see note for oil free
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoon maple syrup
- zest of 1/4 of a lemon, (Heaping 1/8 teaspoon)
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
For the baklava topping:
- 2 tablespoon raw almonds or cashews or walnuts
- 2 tablespoon walnuts or pecans
- 2 tablespoon shelled raw unsalted pistachios,, Pistachios add a lot to the baklava flavor. You can sub walnuts or pecans.
- 8 small dates, or 5-6 medjool dates
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup,, Or more as needed
- zest of 1/4 of a lemon
Instructions
- Make the cookie dough: Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Press and mix to break the almond flour lumps. Add the (melted) coconut oil, vanilla, maple syrup, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix well. The mixture will be somewhat sticky, chill for 15-30 minutes.
- In the meantime, make your topping; Add almonds, walnuts, and pistachios to a food processor and process until the nuts are evenly chopped and the mixture is close to a coarse meal. Then add dates, lemon zest, pinch of salt, and process for a few seconds, then add maple syrup. Process until the dates break down and the mixture is sticky. Add a bit more maple if your dates are dry.
- Once the mixture is getting somewhat sticky, remove it from the food processor. Take the chilled cookie dough from the fridge. Use a 1.5 -2 tbsp cookie scoop or spoon and Scoop the mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Roll the scoops into even balls and then press into flat discs. Then top the disc with baklava nut mixture (You can just put small portions of the mixture and press it on the cookie. Or you can make a flat disc out of a nut mixture and press it over the cookie like a thumbprint. See pictures). These cookies spread a lot, so add a good amount of topping
- Bake at 330 degrees Fahrenheit (165C) for 12-14 (16 mins for crunchier edges) minutes. Time depends on the size of the cookie and the cookie sheet you’re using. You might need to adjust it for 1 to 2 minutes more or less.
- You want them to just start getting golden on the edges, but not any more than else they get too crisp. The cookie will be soft when it comes out of the oven. Remove the baking sheet from the oven.
- Let them cool for 10-15 minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet. Cool completely and serve.Store in a closed container on the counter for upto 3 days. Refrigerate for longer storage.
Video
Notes
- You can use orange zest instead of lemon zest
- Add some cinnamon and cardamom to the baklava mixture for flavor variation
- Oil free: omit the oil and use 1.5 tablespoons smooth nut butter. Almond or cashew preferred, peanut adds too much peanut flavor. Or omit oil and add 1-2 tsp more maple syrup for moisture.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Ingredients:
- For the dry mix, we combine almond flour with tapioca starch, salt and powdered sugar
- baking soda makes these crisp up in the oven
- as wet ingredients, we add coconut oil, vanilla extract, maple syrup, zest of 1/4 of a lemon and lemon juice
- For the baklava topping, I blend raw almonds or cashews or walnuts and pistachios with dates, maple syrup and some lemon zest
Tips:
- you can use orange zest instead of lemon zest
- I used 8 small dates for this recipe – if you’re using Medjool dates, you will only need 5
- if you want, you could add some cinnamon and cardamom to the baklava mixture
- You can store these cookies in a closed box on your counter for 3 days or refrigerate them for longer.
How to make Baklava Cookies:
Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Press and mix to break the almond flour lumps.
Add the coconut oil, vanilla, maple syrup, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix well. The mixture will be somewhat sticky, chill for 15-30 minutes.
In the meantime, make your topping; Add almonds, walnuts, and pistachios to a food processor and process until the nuts are evenly chopped and the mixture is close to a coarse meal, then add dates, lemon zest, salt, and maple syrup.
Process until the dates break down until the mixture is sticky.
Once the mixture is getting somewhat sticky, remove it from the food processor. Take the cookie dough from the fridge.
Use a cookie scoop and Scoop the mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Roll them into even balls and then press into flat discs.
Then top the disc with baklava nut mixture (you can just put small portions of the mixture and press it on the cookie however you want . Or you can make large flat disc out of the nut mixture and press it over the cookie)
Bake at 330 degrees Fahrenheit (165C) for 12-14 minutes. That depends on the size of the cookie and the cookie sheet you’re using. You might need to adjust it for 1 to 2 minutes more or less.
The cookie will be soft when it comes out of the oven.
You want them to just start getting golden on the edges, but not any more than that, else they get too crisp. Then remove them from the oven. Let them cool for 10-15 minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet. Cool completely and serve.
Storage
You can store these cookies in a closed box on your counter for 3-4 days or refrigerate them for longer.
Wow, these were excellent. I doubled the cookie batch and tripled the filling and got 13 large cookies. My husband devoured them. What I like is that these are vegan, GF, with no refined sugar and they don’t crumble like so many other GF cookies. One of the best cookies I’ve made in a long time. Thank you for posting this.
yay! thank you for reviewing!
These are great! I made the no oil version with almond butter so they spread a bit less. They are really delicious.
So happy to hear you enjoy the recipe, Paula.
These cookies are so incredibly delicious! I didn’t add lemon, coconut oil, or powdered sugar and I made 12 cookies. They were sweet, chewy goodness after baking them for 14 minutes even without the added powdered sugar. Looking forward to trying other recipes on this website!
Thank you, Sarah!
These were absolutely delicious! The lemon added just the right amount of zing. Just superb!
Terrific!
These taste amazing but my date mixture was very crumbly. Could I soak the dates beforehand? I live in a very dry climate.
Add a tap or so maple syrup to help bind. Water will change the texture too much and won’t bake well
Yum, yum and yum! Wonderful recipe and cookie!
I omitted the powdered sugar in the dough and believe it is sweet enough.
Lovely, delicious cookies, each one a small feast!
Thank you for all you share with us!
Happy New Year!
thank you!
Sounds delicious!! Can’t wait to try them. I would just like to know if I can use regular organic coconut oil instead of refined coconut oil. Ty.
You can use unrefined organic coconut oil, but keep in mind that the cookies will have a coconut flavor. Refined coconut oil doesn’t taste like coconut.
Thank you your quick response. I used Almond flour. However, not the blanched superfine. I also used corn starch, baking soda, salt and cane Suger.
Hmm. With the adjusted amounts of 1/2 cup maple syrup and more oil. It should have become a dough. What was the consistency?
Granular. It looks similar to your picture above. The one just below the instructions to add the liquid ingredients except the color..
No I meant how was the dough
I admit I’m not a bakery but these looked so good I had to try. Unfortunately, I did not have a good experience. My dough would not come together. I thought I may have needed more liquid so I added a little more coconut oil and maple syrup. No luck. Any insight would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Oh no. Did you change anything? If you used almond flour then the amount of maple and oil are sufficient. If you used another flour then that will throw off the moisture content as almond flour needs 1/4 the amount of moisture compared to grain flours. That means grain flours need 4 times the amount and also wouldn’t turn out right texture
The one thing I did change before printing was the default servings from 10 to 24.
Thanks again for any help you can provide.
These turned out so well! The only thing that I would do differently next time is I would be more generous with the topping. I was afraid that I’d run out, and of course I did not! Very tasty, not overly sweet and the zest really adds the extra zing. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
Love it!
These are delicious! I’ll make these again soon, and I’ll make only two small changes – I’ll take them out of the oven 1-2 minutes early (mine are super crunchy and I’d like them a bit less so) and I’ll make round discs of the nut mix and spread it wider like you show in your photos – I made the mistake of pressing a thumbprint into each cookie, and then only filling in that space. The cookies spread a bunch, so that left me with only a small center of the baklava. Then, I had leftover nut mix, which tbh was delicious sprinkled on my oatmeal the next morning! Even my mom loves these cookies, and she’s “a tough cookie” – and she’s not normally a fan of GF vegan creations 😉
Haha I’m so glad to hear!
Hello richa, your récipé sounded delicious so i made thé topping part of it for a shared pre christmas lunch using filo Layers smothered with melted butter wrapping thé topping, everybody loved it thank you
If i wanted to omit thé dates what could i use instead?
You can replace with coconut sugar or other granulated sweetener and add a touch more maple syrup. Note that this will give the cookies a sweeter flavor and different texture than the original recipe.
I’ve successfully swapped dates with raisins before. 😊
thank you, tatiana!