For me, the holidays are a time to get together with loved ones, watch old cheesy Christmas movies, laugh all night long and eat loads of stick-to-your-belly foods. My mom to this day still hosts the Christmas dinner and it’s always a huge hit. Making holiday dinners is something she does SO well and despite many years of asking if I can contribute a dish, she actually prefers to run the whole show herself. I am allowed however on the odd year to bring a dessert (even though she will still make two other desserts on top of mine so that “people can have options”…!). Since I know there will already be lots of sugar, flour and butter in the other desserts I often, to my mother’s displeasure, try to make a “healthy” dessert, like these chocolate tigernut clusters. This cookie recipe is one of my all time favourite cookies and it’s perfect for the holiday season.

This recipes comes together pretty quick. There are only seven ingredients — cacao butter, cacao powder, vanilla extract, maple syrup, styrian pumpkin seeds, sliced tigernuts and a pinch of sea salt.

Cacao butter is a healthy fat that’s mostly saturated like coconut oil. Even though it’s been separated from the beans’ solids, it still contains antioxidants which are beneficial for improving immunity, lowering inflammation and improving heart health. Cacao powder is high in antioxidant flavonoids and magnesium, while also helping to improve circulation, and it contains theobromine which helps give an energy boost and also helps to reduce stress. Basically, chocolate is healthy! I like to make my own chocolate by combining cacao butter and cacao powder so that I can control the amount and type of sweetener used in the chocolate, however if you want to melt down chocolate chips, that works too!

My sweetener of choice for this recipe is maple syrup because it’s an unrefined natural sweetener that contains higher levels of beneficial nutrients and antioxidants when compared to white sugar or high fructose corn syrup.

I’m also Canadian, so I have a bit of a bias towards maple syrup!

The other star ingredients of this recipe are styrian pumpkin seeds and tigernuts. I prefer to purchase styrian pumpkin seeds instead of regular pumpkin seeds if I have the option because they have a richer, deeper flavour and are higher in nutrients. But feel free to substitute regular pumpkin seeds if that’s what you can get your hands on because they will work just as well! Pumpkin seeds are also a great plant-based source of zinc which helps to support a strong immune system.

Tigernuts are an interesting little root vegetable and not a nut as the name might suggest. I started using tigernuts in recipes back in 2017 when I first tried tigernut “milk” by a Toronto-based company called The Chufa Co. Tigernuts are great because they are naturally sweet. You can buy them whole or sliced, but I prefer to buy them sliced and then I can use them in place of oats in some recipes, like I did with these cookies. Some other great things about tigernuts — they are one of nature’s highest sources of fibre, providing 10 grams of fibre per serving, which is roughly 1/4 cup. Getting fibre into your diet is super important because it helps to capture toxins, waste, fat and cholesterol particles in your digestive system and expel them when you have a bowel movement. Tigernuts are also a rich source of antioxidants, a good source of magnesium and work as a prebiotic. Prebiotics are great because they are an energy source for our beneficial gut bacteria that keeps our entire digestive system running smoothly.

With so many health benefits wrapped into one cookie, these are truly guilt-free (although you should never feel guilty about enjoying a delicious cookie!). I really think you are going to love them and I can’t wait to hear what you think!

Chocolate Tigernut Clusters

— makes 12 cookies —

Ingredients

100 grams cacao butter
50 grams raw cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup maple syrup
pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup styrian pumpkin seeds
1 1/4 cups sliced tigernuts

Method

Melt the cacao butter in a double boiler.
While the cacao butter is melting (be sure to keep an eye on it), pulse the pumpkin seeds in a mini food processor until they are cut up into tiny pieces, about the size of a hemp seed. If you don't have a mini food processor, you could try a regular food processor or a little handy work with a sharp chef's knife should yield a similar result. Set pumpkin seeds aside.
Once the cacao butter is melted, turn off the heat and add each ingredient one at a time to the cacao butter, mixing in between.
Once combined, spoon 1-inch sized clusters onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Place sheet with cookies in the fridge for 10 minutes, or until chocolate has hardened.
Store cookies in the fridge to keep from melting.

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