Cinnamon ‘Oat’meal Raisin Cookies: St. Patrick’s Day Style
I remember pulling a batch of my rosemary raisin crackers out of the oven about 4 years ago and watching as they changed from brown to a bright shamrock green color. I quickly ran through every ingredient in my head and couldn’t possibly think of why this happened this particular time when I had made them numerous times before. Then I realized I let the food processor go a little longer than normal and ended up with pulverized sunflower seeds rather than the fragments of seeds that I normally left in the crackers. Thinking it may have something to do with the seeds being ground and exposed to heat, I started searching online to see if I could work it out. After stumbling around for a bit, I finally found the answer. It wasn’t the heat and the seeds, it was the seeds and the baking soda; or more specifically the miniscule amount of chlorophyl that was left in the seeds from the plant.
Now, I can’t help but crack a smile when someone sends me a frantic email that they subbed in sunflower seed butter (aka sunbutter) for cashew or almond butter in my recipes and had their bread or muffins turn a bright shamrock green color. If you’ve been reading my blog or following me on Facebook for a long time, you’ve probably heard the explanation for this but I usually just respond with “Google Sunbutter and Baking Soda Reaction,” and add a little wink at the end. 
There are ways to counter the reaction, such as lessening the baking soda and adding an acidic ingredient like lemon juice, as I did with my “Peanut Butter” Chocolate Chip Cookies. But in celebration of everything green for St. Patrick’s Day, I decided to let nature take it’s course and keep these cookies green.
Want more green baked goods? Head over to Paleo Parents for green waffles, or just sub in sunbutter for any nutbutter in a recipe that uses baking soda! I think Stacy and I should bake some green cookies to give away when she speaks on the Cave Kids – Raising your Little Neanderthals Panel at Paleof(x) in a couple of weeks! What kid can turn down a cookie that comes out of the oven brown and changes to green before their eyes?! Science is a fun tool to use to get your kids involved in the kitchen. Hopefully your kids will be intrigued and aren’t turned off by mold colored baked goods!
- 2 tablespoons finely ground golden flaxseed
- 4 tablespoons hot water
- ½ cup unsweetened sunbutter
- 6 medium pitted dates
- ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup finely shredded coconut
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup raisins
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Whisk together the ground flaxseed and water to make a slurry.
- Combine the sunbutter, dates, and applesauce in a food processor. Process until smooth. Add the flax slurry, honey, vanilla, and vinegar and process for 15 seconds to combine.
- Add the coconut, coconut flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. Process for 10 seconds, until fully incorporated.
- Remove the blade and stir in raisins by hand.
- Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Gently flatten tops of cookies with damp fingers.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cook on a wire rack. Cookies will turn green once cooled and will continue to get a deeper green after 2 hours.
Notes
* For SCD or if you can tolerate eggs – sub in 1 egg for the flax mixture and reduced the apple cider vinegar to 1/4 teaspoon omit vinegar.
* To make these during other times in the year where you do not want them green – reduce the baking soda to 1/2 teaspoon and increase the apple cider vinegar to 1 teaspoon or use almond butter.
* Chocolate Chips taste amazing instead of the raisins
*Leave your mixing bowl unwashed and watch the batter turn green in a matter of 15 minutes!
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[...] a St. Patty’s Day treat, I whipped up the egg version of Against All Grain’s, cinnamon ‘oat’meal raisin cookies. Holy moly, these really do turn green too, especially as they sit and cool. The reaction of [...]
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[...] Cinnamon ‘Oat’meal Raisin Cookies recipe we used came from the Against All Grain website. Notice “oat” is in quotes because [...]
Danielle, I feel like reciting a rhyme about eating anything you bake anytime, anywhere, with a mouse, with a fox
Stacy
Just read it last night! Shoot I was totally going to put a quote at the top of my post from that book! Good thing you can modify a blog post
Mind. Blown.
I second this remark!
hi , thanks for the recepies
but please let me know how much oatmeal , its not mentionned
thank you
There’s no oatmeal in the cookies. This is a grain-free site, the coconut is used to mimic the oatmeal.
I don’t like raisins in baked goods….do you think it would be good with Enjoy Life chocolate chips?
Thanks for the recipe!!
Lauren
Oh goodness…I just saw your last comment at the bottom…LOL…thanks
The second I saw the photo I knew you had used Sunbutter! I had a batch of cookies turn green and I panicked before google calmed me down
Ha!
I guess I overly cooked mine because they are not green at all, they are brown
I’ll try again another day, the dough stuck to the sides of the food processor bowl turned green.
They’ll probably turn green if the bowl did, just give them a little longer. What kind of sunbutter did you use?
It’s called Once Again organic sunbutter sugar & salt free. They still aren’t green, but really dark brown. I’m going to try another batch and watch them closer when cooking. I got distracted by my 4 and 1 year old and cooked them too long.
Can you use a different butter instead of sunbutter? I just don’t have any sunbutter.Thanks!
You can use almond butter but they won’t be green.
My onions turn a teal green when I make paleo onion bagels. I couldn’t figure out why it was happening either.. so odd!
weird, mine did not turn green… I doubled the recipe perhaps I lost some of the baking powder power doing that?
You need to use baking soda
Yes, I meant baking soda, sorry! They did turn green overnight though – about half of them. The interesting part is I used half Maranatha sunbutter and the Sunbutter brand – from the posts below perhaps the Sunbutter brand isn’t the best to use for the green effect? Either way they were delicious and are all gone!!
They didn’t turn green. So bummed.
. Anyone at high altitude? I make sun butter cookies regularly and they have never turned. I was hoping these would. Could it be altitude related? Was just curious if anyone has had these issues possibly. Have a great St. Patty’s everyone,
Sorry for the disappointment! What kind of sunbutter did you use? And did you use baking soda or baking powder?
We used Sunbutter brand. But obviously I couldn’t serve non green cookies to my guests so we had to eat them all
. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe they’ve never stood around long enough to turn green. Hehe. I did try hard this time and left them for four hrs. Thanks for this yummy recipe.
Ours weren’t green at all either! I used organic Sunbutter brand.
Forgot to mention that I used baking soda too.
Mine didn’t turn green either. A few of them had a faint green inside but were mostly dark. At any rate, they were delicious!
They turn green the longer they sit, especially if its overnight! Mine turned a beautiful mossy green, just like in the pictures.
Just made these cookies today for dessert at dinner – they tasted amazing! My husband and sister just loved them. Sadly, mine didn’t turn green, but we didn’t care. The taste took the “cake”. I used chocolate chips in mine, very good suggestion. Though, I’ll probably make them with raisins next time – they truly taste like oatmeal cookies
Thanks for the recipe!
These are so fun! Nice to be able to have a little green in your life without chemical food coloring.
I love the chemistry involved in baking, so cool! I’m glad you discovered it first though, because if I had baked cookies and the unintentionally turned bright green I would be a little disheartened! Fantastic for St. Patty’s day though! Thanks for sharing!
ugh… i tossed a batch of cookies because they were green. first time trying and baking with nut butters… now i know!!! lol
Can you suggest a good alternative to the coconut? I have just discovered your site, and am so excited, but my newly discovered allergies include coconut.
. is it ok if I just omit it? Or perhaps use something else like almond flour or garbanzo bean flour?
Bummer! Coconut flour is important because it is also used as an absorbent, so if you took that out or subbed something else in for it the texture would be completely different. You can try it though, I don’t know exactly how it will turn out!