Almond Butter Cookies

I'm not quite sure how long the almond butter from yesterday's post would stay fresh in the fridge so I felt I needed to find a few recipes to use it up. Why not make some cookies?

Apparently finding an almond butter cookie recipe was harder than I anticipated but I finally struck gold at the Almond Board of California's website. The recipe already used whole wheat flour and minimal butter as most of the fat comes from the healthy fat source of almond butter! If you used my recipe for almond butter, then your cookies would additionally have flax seed in them.

When I made these I was first a little taken aback by the amount of oil that was on my hands as I was rolling them out. I'm not quite sure why but they are very greasy when you roll them. The recipe also makes 36 cookies. At first, I didn't think I'd have enough dough to make that many as the dough balls were very small. But they spread out a bunch when you cook them so make sure your dough balls are about the size of ping pong balls, not bigger.

These were pretty good! They had a more subtle flavor than peanut butter cookies but tasted a bit butterier (if that's a word...). For the most part they were tender and soft although I did overcook one batch and those got a little crispy.

Almond Butter Cookies

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth, unsalted almond butter. (recipe here)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
36 raw whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray two baking sheets with cooking spray (or just use parchment paper or Silpats like me).

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, and baking soda. In another large bowl, beat together the butter, almond butter and sugars until fluffy (about 2 minutes) Add the vanilla and egg and beat until well combined. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, blending well.

Shape the dough into 3/4 inch balls (about the size of ping pong balls or a little smaller) and place on the baking sheets. Place an almond in the center of each cookie and press down lightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 36 cookies. Per cookie:
80 calories
5 g fat
9 g carbohydrate
1 g fiber
2 g protein

Almond Butter

Almond butter on a cinnamon raisin English muffin - Yum!

I don't have a Costco membership but I lust after my mom's membership. There is a Costco in our town but its about 25 miles from where I live and I just don't think its worth it for the drive. BUT I do, however, make my mom buy me stuff when I know she's going to come out and visit me. This scenario resulted in me scoring a giant 3 pound bag of almonds. AWESOME.

So I've been looking at my giant almond bag and trying to come up with awesome recipes to try. I figured, why not try to make homemade almond butter?

I found a recipe for almond butter that I read the reviews and definitely tweaked it a little bit. First of all, I added honey to it for sweetness and to make it blend "better". Secondly, when I toasted the almonds I added a couple tablespoons of flaxseed to the pan. I figured if I'm already getting healthy fats from the almonds and olive oil, why not make it a triple threat and add flax seed?

Although the taste of this almond butter is good. I must warn you - if you do not have a food processor, a blender is NOT EQUAL to a food processor. I tried to make this with my blender and pretty much feared that I was going to burn out the motor. I would only make this again if I have a food processor. Otherwise, just buy yourself some almond butter ;)

Almond Butter

1 cup almonds
2 Tbsp flax seeds
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp honey

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread almonds and flaxseeds on a single layer in the bottom of a pan. Roast for 20 minutes.

Put almonds and flaxseeds in a food processor. Begin to process while drizzling in olive oil and honey until creamy texture is reached. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.