The Stuffed 5C's

Also known as The Stuffed Carrot Cake Cream Cheese Cookies!

Ingredients for Cookie Dough:

2 1/2 Cups of All-purpose Flour

3/4 Cup of Vegan Butter (I used Earth Balance)

1/2 Cup of Sugar

3/4 Cup of Brown Sugar

2 Flax Eggs (2 Tbsp of Ground Flax Meal+5 Tbsps of Water...mixed and let sit until mixture becomes gelatinous)

1 Cup of unsalted Crushed Pecans

1 Bag of Baby Carrots

1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

1/4 Tsp Nutmeg

1/2 Tsp Cinnamon

1/4 Tsp All Spice

1 Tsp Baking Soda

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/4 Cup of Vegan Butter

1/4 Cup of Unsweetened Full Fat Coconut Milk (only going to be using the solid portion)

2 Cups of Powdered Sugar

1 8oz Container of Tofu Cream Cheese (I used tofu)

1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

1 Tbsp of Cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Use a large baking sheet and cover it with tinfoil and spray it with coconut oil.

First, we are going to make the frosting/cookie filling. In a small mixing bowl, combine the butter, the SOLID portion of the coconut milk and the cream cheese. Add in your vanilla and cinnamon and mix thoroughly. Slowly add in the powdered sugar at about 1/2 a cup at a time to ensure all contents are fully integrated. The frosting should a be thick consistency. Place the frosting in the freezer while you make your cookies.

Next, we are going to prepare the carrots. TBH I really didn't want to finely grate large carrots and I feel like you guys don't want to either, so my solution worked PERFECTLY. First you are going to take a small pot and bowl water. In a food processor, place a 1/3 of a bag of carrots in at a time and basically mince them till they become small square pieces. Do not let the food processor go until you have carrot soup cause that ain't cute. Place the shreds of carrots into the pot of boiling water, reduce the heat and let the carrots become soft for about 7 minutes. After 7 minutes, strain the carrots really well. I left mine by a window so that the water evaporates and I also placed paper towels on top to grab as much water out of the carrots as I could. You can let nature take its course while you prepare the rest of the cookie dough.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together using a hand mixer, whisk or kitchen aide the butter, sugar and brown sugar. Slowly mix in the flax "eggs" and vanilla extract. Using a spatula, stir in the carrots. At this time, you will see the butter start to melt so place your wet ingredients in the freezer while you combine the dry ingredients. In a small mixing bowl, combine nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice and baking soda. Add in the flour and mix well. Take the wet ingredients out of the freezer and add slowly add DRY ingredients to WET ingredients. Combine using some strong mixer. After everything is combined, add in the pecans and combine using a spatula. Carrot cake cookie dough complete!

Carrot cake cookie dough complete!

Now comes the fun part. Take out the frosting from the freezer. Grab enough cookie dough and flatten it out to be the size of your palm and 1 inch thick. Place on cookie sheet and using 1 tbsp, grab some frosting and place it directly in the center of the cookie. Grab another handful of cookie dough, flatten it out, make it 1 inch thick and cover the top of the cookie. Make sure the top of the cookie and bottom of the cookie are combined to make one large cookie.

This recipe will make 9 LARGE cookies.

Pop these babies in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, place them on a cooling rack and let cool for about 1 hour. Then using the frosting and a knife, coat the top of the cookie with a thick layer of icing and top with pecans.

Enjoy the HELL out of these.