A few weeks ago, my husband needed cookies for work. When I went into the kitchen to bake I had no recipe in mind, but just started throwing ingredients together. The end result was an amazingly delicious trail mix cookie. I honestly didn’t know how these cookies would turn out as I only had a little bit of each of the ingredients that I used (coconut, dried fruit and nuts) in the cupboard, but these really were amazing!

The cookies were actually in the freezer a few days before I tried one and realized just how awesome they were. I even went on and on to Craig about how good they were and said, “Why didn’t you tell me these cookies were so good!” He just responded by saying, “I know! Aren’t they really good!” Now I see that he probably just wanted them all to himself. I even had my mother, father and sister-in-law over and when I served them these cookies, they all enjoyed them too. My father-in-law even asked me how I made them.

The trouble was, I hadn’t wrote the recipe down! 😦

Thankfully, I had a basic idea as to how I made them and what all went into them, so for the next two weeks I just had to try and recreate those delicious cookies, as they were the first time I made them, with the perfect texture, amount of sweetness and amount of coconut, dried fruit and nuts.

The first attempt I made at recreating them, they turned out too hard and not as sweet. I realized later that I had used whole wheat flour in my attempt, when the first time I remembered that I had to use spelt flour because we were out of whole wheat.

Yesterday I finally recreated them in their perfection!

And this time I was wise enough to write the recipe down! 🙂

Trail Mix Cookies

Makes 20 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 2 cups spelt flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup medium unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup pecan pieces
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 cup unsalted roasted sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 2/3 cup sunflower oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

* Note: You can use whatever combination of dried fruit or nuts that you like, as long as they are in the same amounts called for. Dried cherries do make these very delicious, but I think chopped apricots would be amazing too!

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, baking soda and sea salt. Add the coconut, dried fruit and nuts.
3. In a separate small mixing bowl, whisk together the ground flaxseed and warm water and let sit a few minutes to thicken. Add the maple syrup, oil, and vanilla and whisk together to combine.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the large mixing bowl and mix until combined.
5. Carefully shape each cookie into a large ball and press down slightly onto the baking sheet. Repeat to make 20 cookies.
6. Bake one sheet of cookies at a time for 8-10 minutes, until lightly golden. Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

Enjoy! 🙂