Nearly-No-Sugar Almond Cookies

Pretty much anyone who has meet me in real life knows that I love to cook, and in particular I love to bake. Growing up it was kind of the household hobby to make cookies or cakes or pies on the weekends or whenever we finished the previous one. Cookies in particular were a near constant. We never had soda (unless we were sick or it was a holiday), or chips or any of the various colorful kid junk food, but there was always homemade cookies. In college, cookies were a kind of stress release. Exams were always accompanied by at least two kinds of cookies, one of which had to have chocolate. When I need to give people a thank you gift, I give them cookies.

So it was rather a blow to my reality when I was told that for health reasons, I shouldn't eat cookies. Not in the generic "don't eat junk food sense" but that I needed to avoid refined flour and sugar or suffer serious consequences in short order. Being determined and prone to culinary experimentation anyway, I tried a whole bunch of disastrous healthy cookies. Note: do not ever try to make cookies with rye flour. No amount of flavoring will help.

Earlier this week however, I was struck with inspiration, and an overwhelming desire for a shortbread cookie. A bag of almond 'flour' was sitting in the back of my pantry. Shortbread cookies are significantly less cakey than other cookies, containing in their simplest incarnation flour, butter, sugar and salt. Surely I could approximate it with almond flour?

Low and behold, it worked. As I was cutting the butter into the almond flour in the food processor, it came to me that I might need a little more binding power. What better than an egg? Add a skimpy 2 tablespoons of honey to 2 cups of almond flour and a handful of slivered almonds, chill in the fridge to firm up, and dole out teaspoons of dough to bake at 375, I had 6 dozen bite sized almond cookies that were halfway between a macaroon and a shortbread cookie. Keeping the dough in ball form let it stay softer in the middle and more macaroon light, flattening the cookie let it be more shortbread like.  I calculated that each cookie has just under a half gram of sugar, which is perfect for my needs, and probably most low-carb people. That half gram is the only carb in the whole cookie. If you can tolerate a little bit more sugar, dipping half the cookie in melted chocolate just makes it better. [If you can't have any carbs  whatsoever, I suspect, though have not tested, adding another egg and using an artificial sweetner would work as well]

I left the flat ones in the oven a little too long, but they still taste good. Just, toasted

Recipe for Nearly-No-Sugar Almond Cookies

2 cups almond flour

1/4 cup butter

2 tbsp honey (the darker the better)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla 

Optional: 1/2 cup slivered almonds

In a food processor, combine 1 cup of the almond flour with the butter. Pulse until thoroughly combined. Add egg, honey and vanilla. Pulse until a wet dough forms. Add almond flour a 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is the consistency of  a chocolate chip cookie batter. Stir or gently pulse in the slivered almonds. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate at least 30 minutes until dough has firmed up. Dish out 1 tsp  worth of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet (about the size of a grape). Leave in balls for a soft cookie, flatten for a crunchy cookie. Bake 20 minutes at 375 or until just beginning to brown around the edges. Let cool. 

Unlike grain based cookies which stale in a refrigerator from the crystallization of the starches, these cookies keep very well in a closed container in the chill chest. 

Enjoy!