It’s going to be a long day today. My son was up and out the door at 0430 hrs this morning on his way to catch a plane to Brisbane for his football trip/weekend. Football trips have been in the news in Australia of late for all the wrong reasons and, like most 19 year-olds, my sons impulse control and decision-making can be a little flawed when wearing beer goggles. But, like most 19 year-olds, he assures me that he is an adult, can look after himself and is allowed to have a good time so – like every mother before me – I have to let him go, keeping fingers and toes crossed that he comes home in one piece. The fact that he has gone off for a beery weekend with his third bout of tonsillitis this year only added to my concerns and I lay in bed worrying for 10 minutes after he left, then gave up and got up.
Given that I now had an extra two hours in my day, I decided to comfort myself with baking – my go-to remedy for most unsettling emotional disturbances. I have a fabulously active sourdough starter bubbling away on the kitchen bench at the moment. That this is so, is no real credit to me. It is a starter given to me by my dear friend Isabel and which I brought back from the US earlier this year. I wickedly neglected it over the last three months, leaving it languishing in the back of the fridge. In a guilt-induced panic last week, I pulled it out, whispered a prayer to the gods of fermentation and started feeding it. Like magic it kicked back into life and I baked with it earlier this week. I intend to use it again, to create something special later today but what I needed this morning was something a little more immediate, preferably with chocolate in it – I’m a bit predictable like that.
Now that my kids are well past the stage where nuts are a threat to their airways, I’ve become quite addicted to them. I have at least four different varieties in the house at any given time and try to get them into as many different dishes as possible. Somehow (yet another failure in efficient domestic management according to The Husband) I managed to buy almonds three times in one week a while back, so I started thinking about ways to use them up this morning and came up with something I’m really rather proud of. I have a Thermomix, so used it to make this, but any decent food processor will do the job, it will just take a little longer to process the nuts. I’ll give the exact quantities for the ingredients I used, but I think you could cut back on the sugar if you wanted to.
Flourless Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 250 gms almonds
- 4 tsps solid coconut oil
- 180 gms soft brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 good pinch of sea salt
- 100 gms dark choc chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Put almonds in the Thermomix, speed 9 for 1 minute. Scrape down, add coconut oil, speed 9 for 30 seconds or until a paste. OR
- Process almonds until finely ground, add coconut oil and continue processing until consistency of a paste.
- Add sugar, egg, vanilla bean paste, salt and bicarb of soda to Thermomix, speed 4, 10 seconds or process until combined.
- Add choc chips, speed 3 Reverse, 10 seconds, or pulse until combined.
- Roll teaspoons of batter into balls, place on prepared cookie sheet and press down with a fork.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Cool on tray for 5 minutes before cooling on a wire rack.
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I have to make these! Thanks for sharing
Baking is so therapeutic I agree! Who need a therapist when you have butter, sugar and flour! 😛
I feel your pain! Yes, the letting go as they transit into adulthood isn’t easy and yes, it is so natural to worry. And why shouldn’t we? I worry all the time with good reason. What an early start to your day. Like you, I head into the kitchen when worrying – it’s a great place to sort out your thoughts. Love your flourless cookies xx
What a great gluten and dairy free recipe, Amanda! I hope they made you feel better. We have sons the same age, and it’s really hard not to worry about them, isn’t it?
These cookies look delicious Amanda and of course now I’m craving chocolate chip cookies! Hope your son has a great & safe weekend on his football trip.
I could use a cookie or two. I wonder if we ever stop worrying; my girls are older but when one goes away I’m as bad as if she were ten and leaving her Mommy! I think letting them go is the hardest part of raising them.
Baking always makes me feel better too sweetie. I’m sure your boy will be fine, maybe his tonsillitis will slow him up a little 🙂
Gorgeous biscuits, aren’t fresh ground nuts delicious? Go the Thermo!
Baking and eating chocolate are my standard anti worry activities too, more comforting than swallowing a valium !!
I love pb choc chip cookies and the fact that this is flourless. Holy yum!!!
I cant even begin to tell you about all the time I spend worrying. At least my son hasn’t tried on any beer goggles yet. This is always cause for concern . Still we were there too and look at us now, baking and baking and worrying. These are lovely cookies . I am yet to use coconut oil in the way. I must give it a try
Baking is my go to therapy too. The first thing I did when I got home from our honeymoon and was worrying about the fact our bags didn’t arrive with us was bake and I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies too. Yours look fantastic. I really love the idea of flourless cookies. I will definitely have to try these.
Yum, these sound great. I have a big bag of almonds just crying out to be made into cookies, I will have to give them a go.
What lovely cookies! They must be divine. I love almonds…
Cheers,
Rosa
They look really yummy. I’d definitely try this recipe for tomorrow’s breakfast. I hope I will manage to bake them half as better as you did.
Thank you for sharing the recipe
Thankyou so much! This recipe is awesome! I cant stop eating it raw too, thinking minus the egg it would be an awesome freezer toffee 🙂