Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies - Win!

For those who know me, I enjoy cooking and especially baking. I find baking is so much harder because you have to hope you get it right while with cooking you can alter as you go through the recipe. So I'm always looking for new recipes - especially baking treats I don't feel super guilty feeding to my kid. I'd say we eat clean-ish at home, and these cookies fall into that category.

I use plain white sugar for these cookies (gasp!) because I had regular sugar in the house and couldn't justify buying a whole thing of Sucanat for one recipe. So the cookies I made obviously weren't 'clean'. Still tasted good though! I do, however, plan to switch to Sucanat once our sugar is out. We don't use sugar often in our house and Sucanat is a better option when it comes to sugars.

This is also a great no-flour or dairy-free. No we aren't gluten/dairy free here (you saw the french toast recipe, right? YUM!) but it's nice to have something to serve to my more GI sensitive friends and family!

NOTE: The ingredients here show me using Stevia. Stevia is NOT Sugar or Sucanat, and does not have the same conversion ratio. For this batch I used 3/4 tsp of Stevia to replace the Sugar/Sucanat. No difference in taste at all!

Original recipe from http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/Recipes/Recipe/Almond-Butter-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies.aspx

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup unsalted almond butter, stirred well
• 3/4 cup Sucanat
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 3 oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa or greater), broken into small pieces

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, stir together first 5 ingredients until blended. Stir in chocolate.
2. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool for 15 more minutes.

A couple of other notes...I've never use a full 3oz of chocolate, I've found about 2oz is enough for my cookies.

Another note is to use almond butter that's been in the fridge for a while. I tried these once (my 3rd time making them) with a fresh tub of almond butter and they spread out horribly and burnt to the point where I threw them out. And I never throw cookies out. The batter was too runny when using newly opened almond butter. So stick it in the fridge for a while until it becomes hard (after you mix it of course). The batter will be much thicker and you'll end up with cookies instead of a burnt mess!

The cookies will still be slightly soft when finished baking and the edges are browned, that's why they need to sit on the cookie sheet for a while.

Happy 
Baking!