Chewy Chocolate-Almond Cookies

Hm. This looks like a grainy oatmeal-raisin cookie, and, honestly, that couldn't be further from the genre here. These are sticky-chewy-chocolatey, and grain-free, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Not that I don't love a good, grainy oatmeal-raisin cookie.

I made these cookies because my friend Nicole brought them over, and they were so insanely crispy and chewy and teeth-stickingly marvelous that I hunted down the recipe from her Pinterest board. Now, oddly, Nicole’s cookies were pale beige and smooth. Mine came out dark brown and nubbly.

Perhaps it was because she didn’t use coconut sugar? Because we used different types of almond butter? No matter, though, as both versions are simply amazing.

Obligatory stacked-cookie shot. Again with the whole-wheat appearance. Trust me, okay?

One disclosure: even though I got all the big-ticket ingredients at Trader Joe’s, these are not inexpensive cookies to make. 

Nonetheless, they have a great deal of food value—protein, healthy fats, phytochemicals—so I think of them as a good investment and a perfect lunch-box cookie. Plus, did I mention how amazing they are?

 

Chewy Chocolate-Almond Cookies

This recipe is adapted from the Slim Palate. I did not sprinkle these with flakey salt, like she recommends, and I’m not sure why. (Okay, it’s because I tasted the raw dough, and it seemed like it was already perfectly salted—which it was!) If you’ve made these peanut butter cookies before, the dough is a lot like that—oily and weird, but the cookies bake up beautifully. These are low-glycemic and gluten-free. And Paleolithic. Because nobody was as healthy as those early hominids, what with their ripe old average lifespan of 33.

1 cup creamy almond butter

¾ cup coconut sugar (or regular granulated sugar)

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon kosher salt (more if your almond butter is unsalted)

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract (This is my addition. I like the little bit of green-almond flavor to balance the roastedness of the nut butter.)

4 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped, or chocolate chips or chunks (I used ¾ cup Trader Joe’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks)

Heat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I used Silpats.)

Use a wooden spoon to beat the almond butter and coconut sugar together in a medium bowl, then beat in the baking soda and salt. Use a fork to beat together the egg, egg yolk, and extracts together in a small bowl or mug, then add the egg mixture to the almond-butter mixture and mix well. Stir in the chocolate. (The dough will seem weird—pasty and oily—and that’s fine.)

Use a cookie scoop to measure out rounded blobs and space them well apart on the cookies sheets.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until just set and browning around the edges. (I’d say “don’t overbake them,” but, then, I’ll bet you weren’t planning to overbake them.) Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.