A vegan and gluten-free recipe for raw lemon cookie dough bites. Cashews, almond flour, and coconut flour are combined for the doughy texture. Along with lemon juice, lemon zest is used for added depth. The cookie dough bites are iced using a cashew/coconut icing. These lemon cookie dough bites can be decorated to look like Pokemon Pokeballs.
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Back in elementary school, there were a handful of shows I watched religiously after school. Arthur, Full House, and Pokemon! (Not necessarily in that order.) My siblings and I collected hundreds of Pokemon cards. We would buy the cards hoping for a Mew or at least a holographic card, but we never got either. And when it came to playing them, we made up the rules as we went because we never actually knew how to play them. (I honestly still don’t know how.) The only thing I knew was that my Charizard card was going to be worth a lot some day!

A vegan and gluten-free recipe for raw lemon cookie dough bites.  Cashews, almond flour, and coconut flour are combined for the doughy texture.  Along with lemon juice, lemon zest is used for added depth.  The cookie dough bites are iced using a cashew/coconut icing.  These lemon cookie dough bites can be decorated to look like Pokeballs.

Lemon cookie dough bites

Of course that’s false, because everyone and their mom has a Charizard card, and a manufacturer somewhere is probably still producing Charizard cards *sigh*. It doesn’t matter anyway, my Charizard is lost somewhere in my parents’ house, if not thrown away. I looked for it and had no zero luck finding it. The only items I found were my two palm-sized Pokeballs hiding in plain sight in my little brother’s room. (Yes, I went snooping around my brother’s room for Pokemon goodies.)

One Pokeball stored a stash of coins, the other was an electronic handheld game. Pokemon would appear on a LCD screen and you would have to catch them using buttons on the device. Essentially, it is the predecessor of Pokemon Go! And with the popularity of Pokemon Go, Pokeballs have been all over my social media feeds. I knew I had to make a no bake dessert that was Pokeball themed. I happened to have a lot of lemons lying around from making lemonade everyday,so lemon cookie dough bites felt like the right choice. I wanted to dye the Pokeballs red naturally, so I experimented with some options.

A vegan and gluten-free recipe for raw lemon cookie dough bites.  Cashews, almond flour, and coconut flour are combined for the doughy texture.  Along with lemon juice, lemon zest is used for added depth.  The cookie dough bites are iced using a cashew/coconut icing.  These lemon cookie dough bites can be decorated to look like Pokeballs.

Natural red food coloring test with raspberry, beet, strawberry, and cranberry powders

I wish more organic and natural food coloring options were available at an affordable price. I made my own liquid food coloring using fruits and vegetables for a while, but it was time consuming. I then changed to using powdered colors because they can be stored in the pantry and don’t require any cooking. I tested 4 popular natural red food coloring options. I used 1 part color powder to 4 parts icing for the test. I found beets were closest to the Pokeball red that I wanted. It produced the deepest pink color, which darkened even further over time. Strawberry powder was a warm light pink, cranberry powder was a cool light pink, and raspberry powder was a medium tone purple. I sprinkled additional beet powder onto my Pokeballs because I felt they weren’t red enough, but it was absolutely not necessary because the color will deepen by itself. Hope you like the cookie dough bites!

 

Pokemon Pokeball Lemon Cookie Dough Bites

A vegan and gluten-free recipe for raw lemon cookie dough bites. Cashews, almond flour, and coconut flour are combined for the doughy texture. Along with lemon juice, lemon zest is used for added depth. The cookie dough bites are iced using a cashew/coconut icing. These lemon cookie dough bites can be decorated to look like Pokemon Pokeballs.

Yield: 10 cookie dough bites

Prep time:
Cook time:
Idle time:
Total time:

Ingredients
Cashew Mix
  • 2 cups cashews
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • ½ cup lemon juice (4 lemons, save zest)
  • ½ tsp vanilla
Lemon Cookie Dough Bites
  • 1 cup cashew mix
  • 1¼ cup almond flour
  • 1 cup coconut flour
  • 6 tsp (2 US tbsp) lemon zest (4 lemons)
Cashew/Coconut Icing
Pokeball Decoration
  • Beet powder (about ¼ tsp per 1 tsp icing)
  • Chocolate chips or carob chips – melted
  • Tortilla wrap
Instructions
Cashew Soak
  1. Soak the cashews in a bowl with 3 cups warm water and 1 tsp sea salt for 3 hours to reduce phytic acid.
  2. Alternative: Soak cashews in a bowl with 3 cups boiling water for 10 minutes.
  3. After soaking, drain and rinse the cashews.
Cashew Mix
  1. Pulse all the cashew mix ingredients in a high speed blender or food processor until creamy.
Lemon Cookie Dough Bites
  1. In a large bowl, mix all the cookie dough ingredients together until it can be formed into a ball. Add more almond flour if the dough is too wet, and more lemon juice if it’s too dry.
  2. Take 6 tsp (2 US tbsp) of the dough and roll it into a 1.5 in (3.75 cm) diameter ball. Repeat with remaining dough.
  3. Place the dough bites onto a baking sheet.
  4. Refrigerate the dough bites at least 20 minutes.
  5. Keep the lemon cookie dough bites in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Cashew/Coconut Icing
  1. Whisk together the cashew mix, melted coconut oil, and coconut cream in a bowl.
  2. Insert a toothpick halfway into a dough bite and dip it into the icing, covering the ball completely in icing. Repeat with all balls.
  3. Refrigerate the iced balls at least 20 minutes.
  4. Keep the iced dough bites in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Pokeball Decoration
  1. Take ¼ cup of the icing and add 3 tsp (1 US tbsp) beet powder.
  2. Spoon the colored icing onto 1 hemisphere of each ball. Alternatively, dip each ball halfway into the colored icing.
  3. Optional: Sprinkle beet powder onto the colored icing only.
  4. Put the melted chocolate into a piping bag (or ziplock bag with a corner snipped). Pipe a chocolate line between the white and colored icing on each ball.
  5. Use the back of a piping tip to punch out circles from the tortilla wrap for the Pokeball buttons. Place the buttons onto the center of the Pokeballs.
  6. Pipe a chocolate circle around the Pokeball buttons.
  7. Refrigerate the dough bites at least 20 minutes.
  8. Keep the Pokeballs in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Notes
  1. Total recipe time includes 10 minute prep time and 20 minute idle time for decorating the Pokeballs.
  2. If you can’t find beet powder, you can use freeze-dried beets or beet chips. Grind them using a food processor, coffee grinder, or mortar and pestle.