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These Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies are a simple sugar cookie that happens to be AIP friendly. While they are made with sweet potatoes and are a pretty shade of orange, they actually taste a lot like a soft, chewy sugar cookie of your childhood.
Don’t let the addition of sweet potatoes fool you; this is not a savory cookie. It’s totally an AIP dessert. The addition of sweet potatoes to this cookie helps keep the cookie moist and chewy.
You can turn these Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies into the ultimate treat – Whoopie Pies! Just use my AIP Vanilla Frosting recipe and pipe the frosting between two cookies.
- ½ cup Palm Shortening plus additional 1 tablespoon for greasing baking sheet
- 2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
- ½ cup Sweet Potato Puree
- ½ cup Maple Sugar (coconut sugar is a good substitute)
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Powder (I use Kiva)
- ½ cup Arrowroot Starch (Tapioca Starch is ok)
- ½ cup Cassava Flour
- 3 teaspoons Coconut Flour
- 2 tablespoons Gelatin (I use Grassfed Gelatin from Vital Proteins)
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Cream of Tartar
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Rub one tablespoon of palm shortening over two large baking sheets.
- Combine the wet ingredients into large mixing bowl then using a hand held mixer, cream the maple syrup, shortening and sweet potato.
- Combine all the dry ingredients into a small mixing bowl and then stir to combine.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the large mixing bowl of wet ingredients. Using the hand mixer combine. The dough will probably look like thick wet sand but don’t worry it will stick together.
- The dough may be a little sticky so I used spoons to make 12 balls of dough and place them on the baking sheets. These cookies spread so leave at least 2 inches between each ball of dough.
- Bake for 12 minutes or until slightly browned on top. Let the cookies cool completely before serving.
Make sure to leave room between each cookie as they will spread during cooking.
30 comments
Can’t wait to try this recipe as I happen to have some leftover canned sweet potato puree to use up 🙂 There seems to be a typo in step 4 – it says to fold in the chocolate chips, however, there are none in this recipe.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We have updated the recipe so it’s ready to go!
I don’t see an oven temperature?
So sorry for this oversight. The recipe is now updated.
What oven temp for the sweet potato cookies?
This looks amazing! Do you think I could sub the gelatin for anything? I have a histamine intolerance and react to gelatin. Perhaps arrowroot?
I have the same question. I am also histamine intolerant.
I have MCAS and have to eat low histamine as well, making the AIP diet challenging with all the broth, soups, gelatin and fermented food. 🙁
What can we use instead of gelatin, egg? If yes, how many?
Hi Linda, we just updated the recipe with the oven temp. Sorry for that mistake!
These are delicious! Worked out perfectly. I used squash instead of sweet potato because I didnt have any.
I don’t know exactly what happened but these went totally flat. I didn’t have cassava flour and found a substitute list that included almond flour so maybe that was the problem. I rolled them up and we’re eating them that way. The flavor is good- not too sweet.
You left a 3-star review for a recipe you didn’t follow?
Does anyone know a brand of palm shortening or gelatin that is sold in a plastic-free container?
[…] Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies from Autoimmune Wellness *Sometimes you just want to bake, right? […]
Can these be baked and then frozen?
Cathy – I don’t see why not!
This is a great recipe! I wasn’t thinking and used red palm oil instead of the shortening that you used and the dough wasn’t as wet. I was able to roll the balls with my hands and the cookies didn’t spread too much. I will make them again with the shortening though and see if we like them better. They sure are tasty and easy to make. Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Baked a batch of these Sweet potato cookies and substitute Honey for Mable syrup. The flavor is really good and the dough was sticky as mentioned in the recipe. They did NOT spread as noted. Therefore they were really gooey!
Taste good though!
I made these last night and they were perfect. My only substitute was coconut sugar rather than maple sugar. My question is how to store them? I’d like them to last a week so put them in the cookie tin I used to use for flour cookies. Today, after being in the tin over night, they are soft. I loved the crunch they had last night.
These are great! I have made 3 different cookie recipes for AIP. These are the most cookie like. I did add a little coconut oil and decrease the shortening, but really great recipe!
It is a cold, dark, rainy day here; perfect weather for the pick-me-up of your yummy cookies. I added 1/3 cup of shredded coconut to the recipe, and the cookies did not “run.” Thank you for your ingenuity and generosity. Be safe, healthy and happy, y’all!
Hi. Is there a substitute for cassava flour? I have arrowroot and tapioca, but NO ONE where I live has cassava. I also have coconut flour and tigernut (which is soo expensive!) And nothing I’ve made turns out right. I know they’re not the same, but people just look at you weird when I ask for cassava. It’s really depressing. I’m CRAVING “normal” foods, I’ve been on this AIP diet for 3 months now. I’m getting really sick of the same things. I’ve tried a few of your recipes, all sound so good. But if you can’t get the right ingredients, they don’t work! And… worse of all, my face won’t stop breaking out! Now, I’m 45! and always had bad skin. And the doctors don’t know what’s wrong. and it’s tests after tests, with no answers! Now, it’s breaking out just as bad, and I bet stress is a major factor. But nothing I do helps! I’m hungry all the time, upset, moody, Oh and high blood sugar doesn’t help! So if I don’t eat, that rears it’ ugly head!
Anyway, sorry, Back on topic…. Is there a substitute for cassava flour?
Thanks for any help….
You can order Cassava flour online
What can I use as a sub for vanilla powder? I tested positive for a sensitivity to vanilla bean, so have to eliminate it for about 8 weeks.
I feel you Gail Rogers, OMG. This is how I feel on the aip diet as well, lol! I miss normal food. Hungry all the time (I have nutrient deficiencies and am super underweight). Hope you’re doing better by now. I rarely see AIP people get to vent about how much this can suck, instead they’re positive all the time- which is good yeah but sometimes we need to vent, cry, release lol. Hope you found your cassava flour. As for me, my gut is still leaky and I sadly developed a sensitivity to cassava flour (AND tigernut & coconut). so I’m in a similar boat of misery ! I just hope I can get over most of these sensitivities someday
I made these with tiger nut flour instead of the coconut flour, and split the maple sugar into half maple syrup and half maple sugar. They weren’t sticky and did spread out but not too badly. Fantastic cookies. Next day, you really want to put them into the toaster to heat them back up because they lose the little bit of crispy.
Can I eliminate the gelatin or substitute it for something that is vegan? I want to make for a friend who is gf and vegan. Thanks
Please note that cassava flour is almost always extremely high in lead, according to testing done by the Lead Safe Mama. I hope you will inform yourself so you can avoid the health problems I had when I was eating a lot of cassava flour.
Okay so I made these cookies exactly like the recipe says. Half way through baking I put chopped pecan and coconut, and put them back in the oven to finish baking. They spread a little ,but not much. They are amazing chewy on the inside and crunchy on the bottom. So good , I had to make myself stop eating all the cookies. Thank you for the recipe.