Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I just read that tomorrow is National Chocolate Chip Day.  So in honor of this very important day, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to post my Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.  For about a week now, there has been a bottomless jar of cookies on the counter.  I made this recipe so many times and so many different ways until I got what I wanted!  It’s a horrible thing to have to keep taste testing cookies until you get the recipe perfected…especially cookies that have chocolate chips in them!

Here’s a couple of the things I learned.  I wanted a crisp but moist in the middle cookie and thought I could achieve that with the combination of butter or coconut oil combined with palm shortening.  I originally tried this with eggs and decided it was too cake like and that the shortening should be sufficient to hold it together.  When I tried it without the eggs, it seemed too oily and just not almond buttery enough.  Throughout this process I was using a combination of granulated sugar (lakanto) and honey (I was using the Xylitol honey from Nature’s Hollow) and this was adding to the problem of undercooked cookies on the inside.  I finally realized the answer, get rid of the honey and use all “dry” sweeteners.

The other problem was the cookies weren’t spreading at all once I increased the almond butter.  This should not have been happening since I was using mostly butter and a bit of shortening.  I decided to eliminate the shortening since I certainly didn’t need to keep the cookies from spreading too much.  There is something to baking with fats and the amount of saturated to unsaturated fats you use matters and affects the outcome.  With a crispy, chewy cookie in mind, I needed to reduce some saturated fat(butter, coconut oil or shortening).  The end result was well worth the wait!!

Recipe: Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups Honeyville Almond Flour
• 1/2 tsp sea salt (omit if almond butter has sea salt in it)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp grass-fed butter (Kerrygold) or coconut oil, softened* (I used butter)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup almond butter*
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 -1/2 cup coconut palm sugar (I used half Swerve and half palm sugar)*
• 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips or chunks

Instructions

1. Combine the flour, salt and soda and set aside
2. Cream the egg, almond butter, butter or oil and sugar. Add in the vanilla and mix well
3. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix well
4. Fold in the chocolate chips
5. Using a cookie scoop or your hands, place balls of dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet
6. Press each dough ball down with the palm of your hand
7. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until brown
8. Let cool and store in an air tight container

Makes about 18 cookies

Quick notes

*I prefer fresh grind almond butter. If using jarred, stir well or pour off the oil.

*Do not completely melt the butter or oil, this will create very oily cookie dough. They will be fine once they cook, but dough will seem too wet.

*You can certainly try making these with part honey, just realize they will be dough like in the middle.

Many peanut butter cookies are flourless so they really taste like peanut butter.  I wasn’t trying to replicate that idea with almond butter.  I wanted to use the almond butter for added flavor.  You probably wouldn’t even know its in these since the base is almond flour.  Feel free to try peanut butter instead, it may be more noticeable in this recipe and who doesn’t love chocolate and peanut butter together!

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Tagged as: Almond flour, Chocolate, Cookies, Swerve