Edible Birthday Cake Protein Cookie Dough Recipe

Part of the fun of baking cookies is eating cookie dough from the mixing spoon, but we all know that's a risky proposition. If you want to have your cookie dough and eat it too, follow Mashed recipe developer Annabelle Randles' lead. She shares an edible birthday cake protein cookie dough recipe that will satisfy your sweet tooth without compromising on your health. Aside from being completely safe to eat raw, Randles packs in a bit of extra nutrition thanks to a scoop of vanilla protein powder. 

With this tasty birthday cake cookie dough recipe, you'll get to savor the sweet treat and get a protein boost at the same time. With colorful sprinkles found in every bite, this edible cookie dough looks just like the real deal. Oat flour, cashew butter, and maple syrup blend together to create a sweet and chewy dough that might fool cookie dough enthusiasts into thinking it's the real deal ... and it might even be better!

For this recipe, you'll need oat flour, cashew butter, vanilla protein powder, maple syrup, rainbow sprinkles, and kosher salt.

Place the oat flour, cashew butter, protein powder, maple syrup, rainbow sprinkles, and kosher salt in a mixing bowl.

Mix the ingredients until combined.

Transfer the mixture to a small bowl.

Place in the freezer for 1 hour.

Serve with some more rainbow sprinkles on top if desired.

This edible birthday cake protein cookie dough recipe uses cashew butter as a primary ingredient to give the finished product a rich, creamy texture and a sweet, nutty taste. However, nut allergies are a serious reality and will instantly ruin this recipe for anyone sensitive to cashews. Thankfully, you can play around with the ingredients with successful — albeit slightly different — results. 

There are plenty of alternative to nut butter, including tahini (sesame paste), sunflower seed butter, cookie butter (cookie butter to make cookie dough? now we've heard everything), coconut butter, and soy nut butter, all of which could be swapped in to replace the cashew butter. When substituting cashew butter with other ingredients such as these possible substitutions, just be sure to keep the oil-rich, smooth consistency in mind, as it helps bind the components and create an unctuous cookie dough-like texture.

Although this edible birthday cake protein cookie dough is a delicious snack that will provide you with a fix for your sweet cravings and a dose of protein, it's best left at that. Shaping it into cookies and baking them like you normally would won't yield successful results. Basic ingredients like eggs and leavening agents are omitted from this edible cookie dough recipe, which means the cookies will not behave like you might expect. 

For example, the attempted cookies might spread out and become flat and hard instead of puffing up nicely into chewy cookies. They could also become very crumbly since eggs act as a binder to ensure the ingredients stick together properly. The oil from the nut butter could even separate and cause the cookies to be extra oily. To ensure delicious results, use this recipe when you're craving a healthy raw snack and pick from the best cookie recipes to make when you want a real cookie.