toffee-esque almond flour cookies

 

Tonight I made my sweet little boy some delicious cookies. Cookies that were so yummy, that my picky, anti-sweets, gluten eating, dairy loving, carnivore husband said were AMAZING. Yup. 

I recently purchased a book called The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam. It looks a little something like this: 

 

This book is FILLED with amazing information on the benefits of almond flour, and natural sugars. She is a wealth of knowledge. In the book, one of the recipes really caught my eye. It was called the TROPICAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. They sounded amazing, but I decided to tweak it tonight and try something a little different. 

Instead of shredded coconut and chopped cashews, I substituted my homemade Candied Nut Crumble.

Here is what I came up with: 

2 1/2 Cups almond FLOUR (Check out Lexie's Kitchen to find out how to make your own!)**I made my own in an old blender on pulse and then sifted it.**

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 Cup coconut oil, (melted over low heat) (you can also use palm shortening)

1/2 Cup RAW ORGANIC Agave Nectar

1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract (gluten free)

1 Cup Chocolat Chunks

1 Cup Candied Nut Crumble 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. 

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda, and mix together until well blended. 

In a separate bowl, combine the coconut oil, agave nectar and vanilla and mix it until it is well mixed together. 

Combine ingredients and mix until a batter forms and you feel that it is well mixed together. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the chocolat chunks and candied nuts crumble until it is evenly dispersed. 

Using a cookie scoop, or a regular spoon, spoon the dough on to the cookie sheets leaving at least two inches between the cookies as they will spread. No need to flatten. 

Bake for approximately 8-10 minutes. Let cool on the sheets for 10-15 minutes before letting them cool completely on a paper bag. 

Eat and enjoy!  

REALLY REALLY ENJOY! 

Candied Nut Crumble

I am a big fan of candied nuts. I didn't used to be. My mother would eat candied nuts and I would gag. But as I grew to be an adult, I converted to a love of candied nuts. But what to do when you can't have butter or refined sugar? Say goodbye to carnival candied nuts in those little paper cones. But tonight, while making a new batch of cookies for my son, I decided to try being creative, and VOILA! Refined sugar free candied nuts were born right there in my kitchen!

This recipe is my own. I didn't borrow it from anyone. I didn't tweak someone else's hard work. From start to finish this is mine. I think this would make an EXCELLENT topping to an apple crisp or peach cobbler to make it gluten free and A-MAY-ZA-ZING! (I would just add the crumble topping to the cobbler during the last 10-15 minutes of baking to prevent the nuts from burning).

CANDIED NUT CRUMBLE

1 1/4 Cup whole or chopped nuts of choice (I used chopped cashews and macadamia nuts for this)
1/4 Cup Coconut Oil
1 Tbsp gluten free vanilla extract
1/2 - 1 Tbsp (or to taste) ground cinnamon
3 Tbsp palm sugar

In a medium pan, melt the coconut oil over low heat until melted. Add the chopped nuts and stir constantly. Make sure all the nuts are coated with oil. You will probably have excess oil. That is okay.

Next add the vanilla, and stir, stir, stir! Make sure you get vanilla mixed in with all the nuts. (You can add more vanilla if you like).

Next add the cinnamon, by dusting it over all the nuts, giving it an even coating, then stir again making sure that the cinnamon gets mixed in well.

Add the Palm sugar in 1 Tbsp at a time, to absorb the excess oil. You can stop adding sugar once you feel that all the oil is soaked up by the dry ingredients, or add all of the remaining palm sugar. (You can add more if you need to).

Stir until the nuts are a little more brown, and then scrape all contents on to a plate to let cool. You can put them in to the fridge to cool off faster, or just leave them out until they are cool enough to eat or put in to a plastic storage bag. Store in the fridge. (Try to use it within a week).

This is great to add to granola, or trail mix or just to eat by itself. As I said already it would be excellent in cobbler recipes too. I think it is pretty rich and sweet, so I don't need many to curb my cravings for sweet and crunchy!

Enjoy!

Choco Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a recipe I had blogged about over on my personal blog last year. I just made these babies again today, and thought I would share them with you. I am keeping my original post, which will follow this little note, but wanted to add some new substitutions...

In place of the powdered honey, you can use regular sugar or coconut sugar. You might consider lowering the amount to 2/3 cup instead of a full cup to cut down on the sweetness. (These guys are really sweet).

In place of eggs, you can use unsweetened applesauce, (I am following a vegan diet as of late, and so tonight when I made these I used 1/4 cup + 1/8 Cup applesauce instead of the eggs and it worked perfectly). A word to the wise, adding applesauce in place of eggs adds sweetness to an already sweet cookie.

In place of the Peanut butter, you can substitute almond butter, cashew butter, hazelnut butter or natural peanut butter. I would recommend using a nut butter that is less sweetened than commercial nut butters. I always prefer to make my own, but you can of course use commercial products with great success. Because of my sugar issues, (and if you want to make this refined sugar free) I would recommend using either an unsweetened nut butter, or one sweetened with either agave or palm sugar, or (if you like) something like turbinado or "raw" cane sugar.

For the chocolate chips, you can either use regular chocolate chips, (as shown in the pictures) or a product like Enjoy life semi sweet chocolate chips, or make chocolate chunks from my Chocolat recipe.

My husband who eats what he pleases ate quite a bit of these tonight when he came home from work. So, if you don't want anyone to know that these cookies are "allergen friendly" then don't tell them. I have found that when you introduce something that you have made, no matter how delicious it is, as "gluten free," "Dairy free," etc people decide right then and there that it isn't going to taste good. So, if it comes up, tell them, but if not, let them enjoy it, and you can smile to yourself that you made something that JUST ABOUT ANYONE CAN EAT that is delicious. 

NOW ON TO THE ORIGINAL POST:

Well, nothing says delicious like chocolate and peanut butter! I received a cookie recipe that is FLOURLESS from my husband's step-mom, but it is just peanut butter. Although they taste good, I am always looking for ways to add more deliciousness to existing recipes. I love to tweak things and make them my own.

We're lucky I got what pictures I did! Husband came home last night and saw them in the fridge and scarfed down half of them! Then, this morning, my sweetheart let me sleep while he took care of little man, and by the time I got up there were only two left. That's right, Ez had a LOT of cookies for breakfast. That's okay. It's not like mommy hasn't been guilty of chocolate cake breakfasts, or cookies for dinner.

So, on to the recipe!

1 Cup powdered honey (or you can use sugar)
2 eggs (I use Large eggs)
1 Tbsp gluten free vanilla (no caramel coloring allowed!)
3/4 Cup Peanut Butter (I use Skippy Natural-Delicious!)
1/3 Cup cocoa powder (I buy it in bulk at the Natural food store)
1 Cup Semi Sweet chocolate chips

Put powdered honey, eggs and vanilla in a bowl and mix it for about a minute or two until it's nice and creamy. Then add the peanut butter, and cocoa powder and mix for another minute. Add the chocolate chips and just mix until they are well mixed in.

If the cookie dough makes it from this stage to the pans, GOOD JOB!

With whatever dough you have left, (ha ha) use a teaspoon to put down some dollops on to an ungreased cookie sheet, (I have wilton non stick cookie sheets, but I don't think it really matters) flatten them a little, (mine were about 1/4 inch thick) with the back of a spoon or fork, (or wet fingers) and place them in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes. Pull them out and make sure they aren't gooey. You can continue to cook them for another 2 minutes if you think they aren't finished yet. Be careful though, because they can burn pretty fast!

Now, pull them out, let them cool, eat and enjoy. (If you get one before they are scarfed up by your family!)

 

 

With Love,
Suz

Chocolate and Avocados

What can you make with Chocolate and Avocados? A delicious Gluten free, dairy free, soy free, refined sugar free, peanut free, egg free, corn free Chocolate pudding of course!

My son loves pudding. LOVES it. Whenever we go to the store and he sees the snack packs, he says something along the lines of, "please please pleeeeeeeeease?" Because of his food sensitivities, the answer is always "no."

So, I looked online to see if I could find a good chocolate pudding recipe and try to adapt it to my lifestyle, and lo and behold, I found a recipe over on one of my FAVORITE BLOGS, Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen.  Ali is a WHIZ in the kitchen with her AMAZING RECIPES.  But I will tell you this, her recipe for Avocado Fudgesicles is what got me hooked on her blog.

So, I decided to add my own twist to her recipe, and this is what I came up with:

**For those uninterested in "grasshopper" pudding, substitute more vanilla in place of the Peppermint extract.**

GRASSHOPPER PUDDING

8 pitted dates
1/2 Cup water
3 medium Avocados (or one jumbo)
1 Cup Cashew Milk
1/4 Cup RAW ORGANIC Agave Nectar
5-7 TBSP Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 tsp Pure Gluten Free Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Peppermint extract
Pinch of mineral rich Sea Salt

You will do best with a high powered blender such as a Vitamix, but you will probably do fine with a regular blender, you may just need to blend the ingredients longer.

Put dates in to the blender, and cover with the 1/2 cup of water. Let soak for 30-45 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend on high until you have a creamy, non lumpy mixture.

You can either pour in to individual sized bowls and serve as pudding, or pour in to Popsicle molds and make fudgesicles. If you freeze them, freeze them for AT LEAST 6 hours, as Ali says in her recipe.

Any way you do it, it's delicious!

ENJOY!

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I don't know about you, but I have ALWAYS loved cookies. Baking cookies reminds me of the days of my childhood, when my mother would let me lick the cookie dough off the beaters, and the smell of sweet cookies baking on a cool evening. Cookies cooling off on a brown paper bag just takes me back to simpler times. Times when my grandparents were both still alive, and after my grandmother died and my grandfather (who happened to be my best friend growing up) would still bake me delicious cookies just because he loved me so much. (I still use the cookie sheets that they used my whole life, because for some reason it makes me even happier to bake with them).

When I went Gluten free, I thought my days of cookies were gone. And then I searched online and found gluten free cookie recipes, and thought I had died and gone to heaven! But then I would bake them, and taste them, and all the dread came back. I was never going to have a tasty chocolate chip cookie again, and my son would never have those memories when he's an adult... the memories of baking cookies with mom and anxiously anticipating the moment when they got out of the oven and all the hard work payed off with the first delicious bite.

Then I discovered Silvana Nardone's All Purpose Flour Mix, and took an old Chocolate Chip cookie recipe I had and through a little trial and error, adapted it (deliciously) to my dietary limits.

Are you ready to taste heaven again? Here are some pictures to get you ready...

This recipe makes about 18 cookies... And no one but you and I have to know that they are Gluten and Refined-Sugar free! (They wouldn't believe you anyway).

1 Cup plus 3 TBSP GF All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Corn Free Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp mineral rich sea salt 
1/2 Cup NON HYDROGENATED Palm Shortening
1/2 Cup packed Refined sugar free light brown sugar
1/4 Cup Coconut/Palm sugar
1 medium egg + 2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce (**please see notes below marked with **)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 Cup Chocolate chunks made from my chocolat recipe

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium glass bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well blended.
3. In a separate bowl, mix (with your mixer) together the shortening, brown sugar, palm sugar for about 2 minutes. Then add the egg and applesauce and vanilla. Mix together for another 2 minutes until the mixture is creamy.
4. Add the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredient bowl, and mix together until it is well blended and there are no chunks of flour left. Add the chocolate chunks to the mixture and mix it in with a wooden spoon. You can also add raisins, or nuts at this time if you would like to.
5. Using a 1/2 inch ice cream scoop, or a rounded tablespoon, drop the cookie dough on to the cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
6. Place the cookie sheet in oven (one sheet at a time) for 8-10 minutes. You can go a minute or two longer if you like a crunchier cookie. I like mine soft.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool on the sheet for about 2-3 minutes. Then using a spatula, place the cookies on to either a wire cooling rack or on a flattened brown paper bag. (I prefer the latter for both memories and for soaking up any extra oils).
8. Let cool a few minutes longer, eat and enjoy!

I eat mine with a nice glass of cold Cashew Milk.


EGG FREE OPTION:
 **OR enough ENER-G egg replacer for one large egg, OR 1 TBSP ground flax meal + 3 TBSP Warm Water, OR 1/4 Cup applesauce (The recipe calls for one large egg, but you can use any one of these options)