Black Walnut Raspberry Cookies (vegan)

Looks like the one on top got too much frosting. Oops. I came up with this recipe by tweaking a basic sugar cookie recipe until it no longer even faintly resembled the original, so can I take credit for it? Then again, the reviews on this aren't all in yet so I might not want to. This recipe if for 5000-6000 feet so it will be different at sea level.

Dry ingredients:

3.5 cups white whole wheat flour (or combination of white and whole wheat, or whole wheat pastry flour); at sea level, start with 3 cups

0.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:
0.5 cup Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread (1 stick)
0.5 cup ground walnuts (grind in a mini-prep or coffeegrinder until almost like peanut or almond butter)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup agave syrup
0.5 teaspoons black walnut extract (saw this at the spice store, and that's why I came up with this - wanted an excuse to use it)
Optional: add a half cup or more of chopped walnuts; I didn't, because I wanted to be able to roll out the dough

1. Whisk together dry ingredients.
2. Cream Earth Balance and brown sugar until light tan color and fluffy, then add syrup and extract and mix thoroughly.
3. Add dry ingredients no more than a half cup at a time, or there will be flour all over the walls in your kitchen.
4. Chill dough in fridge for at least an hour, or freeze for longer storage.
5. Preheat oven to 365 F (I think this translates to 350 at sea level).
6. Roll out dough to the same thickness you would gingerbread cookies (no I did not measure) and cut whatever shapes you want; mine are fairly uniform 1.5 inch circles because I wanted to make sandwich cookies.
7. Bake for 9 minutes - or at least that's what I found was perfect for mine.
8. Cool and frost with this raspberry frosting/filling:

1 stick Earth Balance
2 teaspoons raspberry extract
Around 2 cups confectioner's sugar (if you are seriously vegan, get organic or a brand that doesn't whiten sugar with bone char)
Coconut, almond or soy milk to thin frosting if needed

Freeze in an airtight container or freezer bag for at least a day and they will soften when they thaw.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The cookies are good and not too sweet, but the frosting is like candy. I might try a maple filling for the next batch but I was in the mood to experiment with a nut and berry flavor combination and had high hopes for it. I don't know if it's worth suggesting you buy these two extracts if you're never going to use them again, so I'll try to come up with some additional uses for raspberry and black walnut.