Tag: gluten free

Put the almond in the cocoa powder and eat it all up

What?  That doesn’t work? Fine.

We continue our adventures with gluten free baking this week.

In general, my weekly trips to Trader Joes are precise,  surgical and leave little room for casual perusal.  Experience has taught me that unless I show up at a specific Trader Joes right as it opens on Sunday morning, the shopping experience will leave me wanting to poke someone’s eye out with one of those little toothpicks they use to serve the samples (see blog name for explanation).

Every once in a while (like once a year), I get lucky and it seems like the only people in the store are me and the friendly staff.  This happened recently and I actually paused to look around the nut butter section while picking up the sun butter for last week’s post.  This was probably a bad idea on my part because what did I spy with my little eye?  None other than Nutella’s American cousin: Cocoa Almond Spread.

For reason’s I’ve just explained, I’d never seen this concoction before and knew immediately that I had to make something with it (this has absolutely nothing to do with a strong desired to sit down with the jar and a spoon…how dare you suggest this).  The spread has the same consistency as almond butter (duh).  Thicker than nutella.  It’s also less sweet than the hazelnut version (though still sweet enough to reduce the sugar in the recipe).

As soon as I got home, I pulled my almond flour out of the freezer and got to work using the sun butter blossoms recipe as a blueprint.

The almond flour obviously behaved very differently than the corn flour and, with about a tablespoon and a half of dough, I go beautiful, perfectly round 3 1/2 inch cookies.  They had a nice texture reminiscent of their fancier kin, the macaron.

Seeing the finished versions cooling on their wire racks sent my brain to a singular place.

That’s right, these made the perfect ice cream sandwich cookies.  You could also spread a nice layer of the cocoa almond butter on the inside of a cookie, top it with another and you’d have yourself an excellent sandwich cookie.

Soundtrack

Ray LaMontagne

Cocoa Almond Cookies

recipes makes about 18 (1 1/2 dozen, is easily doubled)

Ingredients

  • 1 C cocoa almond butter
  • 1/3 C sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 C almond meal/flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line 2-4 baking pans with parchment paper
  2. Using a standing or hand mixer, cream together the sugar and cocoa almond butter for two-to-three minutes.
  3. Beat-in the egg and vanilla until batter is smooth.
  4. By hand, sift-in flour and baking powder and then fold until the flour is just combined into the batter.
  5. Roll batter into balls using about 1 1/2 TBS (less if you want a smaller cookie).
  6. Set balls on lined baking sheets about three-inches apart.  Cookies will spread significantly (diameter will nearly triple).
  7. Bake 8-10 minutes until cookies appear set.
  8. Slide parchment off of cookie sheets and allow cookies to cool on the parchment.
  9. Ice cream optional!

Awesome Blossom

I always associate September with cookies.  I think it’s the back-to-school, pack you lunch, bring a treat relationship.  This blog has hosted its share of cookie recipes and I’m fairly certain I’ve covered the basics at this point.  Just check out the index of you don’t believe me.  So, I thought I’d do some experimenting, starting with a gluten and peanut-free take on the traditional peanut butter and jelly.

Nowadays, it seems most schools have declared themselves peanut-free zones.  Many more include tree-nuts on the contraband list.  But there is hope: sun butter.  If you haven’t tried it, the spread is hearty and nutty enough to stand on its own.  It also has the right fat-content to create a soft, and satisfying texture to baked-goods.

We’ve been experimenting with eliminating certain kinds of food in our household.  Turns out dairy is no friend to either TD or me.  I’ve also kicked out gluten during weekdays.  This isn’t because either of us have allergies.  Rather,  I’ve observed that most of what we consume with gluten is junk we shouldn’t be eating in the first place (I’m talking to you Cheez-Its).  Probably because we don’t have allergies, losing the gluten hasn’t been hard.  In fact, It’s been fun exploring new kinds of grains.

All of this is a long explanation for why I used cornmeal in this cookie recipe.  I love the texture cornmeal brings to cakes and so I thought I would try it with a cookie.  I realize that in some circles corn is a greater evil to nutrition than Loki is to the Avengers.  But, you pick your battles and I don’t claim to be a foodie activist.

The dough will be a little stiff.  If you can’t fold the batter with a spatula and some elbow grease, add in a tablespoon or two of juice or water.

Since  I had peanut butter and jelly on the brain, I gave each half a teaspoon of raspberry jam.  These would be almost as good without the little dab of fruit-though, I’d up the sugar to 1/2 C if you decide to go this direction.

The texture was soft and the flavors hearty with a little bright sweetness from the preserves.  Without telling him that I’d swapped-out his beloved peanut butter and flour, I fed a couple to TD.  He declared them tasty.  Maybe sometimes not knowing is half the battle.

Soundtrack

Joe Jackson

Sunbutter Blossoms

makes about 18 2 inch cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 C sun butter (make sure to stir before measuring)
  • 1/3 C sugar plus more for rolling
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2/3 C corn meal
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1-2 TBS juice
  • jam of your choice (I used raspberry here but I’d love it if someone tried this recipe with Trader Joe’s fig butter)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
  2. In a smallish bowl, whisk together corn meal and baking powder. Set aside.
  3. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together sugar and sun butter for 2 minutes.
  4. Beat-in egg and vanilla.
  5. With mixer setting on low, mix-in flour until just combined.  If the dough is too stiff to fold by hand, incorporate a tablespoon or two of juice.
  6. Pinch-off a generous tablespoon of dough, roll into a ball and then roll in sugar.  Place on cookie sheet.
  7. Repeat process until all dough has been balled.
  8. Using your clean index finger, gently push a well into the center of each dough ball.
  9. Fill well with jam being careful to not overfill the well.
  10. Bake for about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheets.