Paleo, Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

My husband and I are in the middle of a 30 day Paleo Challenge. Adjusting to not consuming any processed foods (including flour) has been a little of adjustment for us, I LOVE TO BAKE! Of course, within reason...I make cookies every once in a while as a treat! I had no idea how to adjust baking without the use of flour, but luckily I have discovered the magical, wonder of almond meal! I absolutely LOVE this stuff! It makes a great substitute for real flour and adds a nice nutty flavor to everything I have baked. Here is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I came up with after trying a few others out. We love these cookies and they are pretty filling with the pecans and almond flour in them!

1 1/4 cup almond flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup pecans whole or halves (not chopped yet)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

½ cup coconut oil 

1/4 cup honey

1 cup chocolate chips (I like Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips)

1. Mix almond flour and baking soda together. 

2. Place pecans in a food processor and pulse until you get a very fine flour, but not so much you get pecan butter. 

3. Add pecans to almond flour mixture with a fork and blend well. 

4. In smaller bowl, mix vanilla, egg, coconut oil, and honey. 

5. Combine the wet ingredients and dry ingredients with the chocolate chips. The dough will be really sticky.

6. Using a small spoon (I use a melon baller) spoon dough onto a cookie sheet. The size of the cookie should be about a heaping tablespoon.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until tops are toasted brown.

8. VERY IMPORTANT -Let cool 10 minutes before picking up of they will fall apart.

Click here for a printable recipe

The Skinny: 20 @ 174 calories

source

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Easy Easter Nest Cookies

Want an easy cookie to make for Easter? Well, look no further then these Easy Easter Nest Cookies. I found this recipe originally on the Fiber One website and decided to give it a try. This recipe is fast and very easy to make. Nest cookies are usually made with crispy chow mein noodles, but this recipe uses the original bran cereal. The cookies end up crunchy and a little healthier packing in 11% of your daily fiber needs in just one cookie! If that doesn't give you a reason why you can eat more than one, I don't know what will!

2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 3/4 cups Fiber One original bran cereal
Egg shaped candy (I used whoppers)

1. Line cookie sheets with waxed paper.
2. In double boiler, melt chocolate. Stir until smooth.
3. Add in peanut butter and stir until smooth.
4. Mix in cereal.
5. Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper.
6. Top with egg shaped candy for the look of a nest.
7. Refrigerate until chocolate is firm.
8. Enjoy!

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The Christmas Cookie Party

It's that time of year, CHRISTMAS COOKIES! I know many of us have been really busy (notice the lack of blogs for the last 2 weeks!) but I LOVE making Christmas cookies and couldn't wait to get together with a friend of mine and fellow blogger, Amelia, to make a bunch of cookies.
(Read her blog here.)

She came over to my house one morning around 10am and we began the baking process. This is what the counters looked like littered with our baking arsenal.
She has two kiddos and I had my one, but really none of them are old enough to really enjoy the baking process. So the two older ones played together in the living room while watching Yo Gabba, Gabba!
And Amelia found a way to multi-task baking and hanging out with her little one.
We ended up making six different kinds of cookies! Amelia made some wonderful Oreo Truffles. Which, I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of, but she also made these super yummy Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies, which are a new fav of mine!
And no Christmas Cookie party would be complete without Holiday Sugar Cookies. This recipe is really unique in that it uses brown sugar instead of white.
I chose to do freezer cookies, so we could just pull them out and slice them up when needed. I found this recipe for these Colorful Swirl Cookies on Pinterest.
Then of course, there are my Cranberry Pinwheels which I LOVE!
And lastly some Chewy Chocolate Cookies that I rolled in crushed candy cane.
It was really fun to bake all day...and when I say all day, it was ALL day! In total, we baked for 6 hours! I would be lying if I didn't tell you that we did stop and took a break around 2pm to enjoy a beer. It's not a regular occurance, but it was fun to do!We had a really great time and enjoyed eating all the cookies we made.
Do you and your family have any regular Christmas cookie favorites? I would love to have you share the recipes! I love trying new cookies and adding more cookies each year to our cookie list!
Happy baking!

Cranberry Pinwheels

I am one of those people who love cranberries. I love cranberry juice, dried cranberries, and I LOVE cranberry sauce. When I was at Sam's Club the other day they had this HUGE bag of cranberries that I couldn't resist in buying. My plan was to use them to make cranberry sauce for the family Thanksgiving dinner...however I realized once I got it home I had way too many cranberries and needed a way to use them. I decided to go with cookies. I found this recipe on Tammy's Recipes, and this recipe for sure will become a yearly Holiday cookie for several reasons! For one, the cookies are so good. They are not too sweet, a little tart, and just a good balance to the normal rich cookie. Second, I can make these cookies weeks in advance and just freeze them. They cook up fast so all I have to do is take out a roll and slice up some cookies. So easy! I hope you enjoy!

To start, you will need the following ingredients:

Cookie Dough Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom, optional

Cranberry Filling Ingredients:

2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water, divided

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon orange zest, optional

1. Soften you butter.

2. Cream together sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla.
3. Add in your cardamom.
4. Mix together well.
5. In a sifter, place you flour and salt and sift into the bowl. Stir until a thick dough is formed. I should say this dough is pretty stiff, so I had to kneed it by hand. (Don't worry I washed my hands.)
6. Divide your dough in half and form balls. (I doubled my recipe so I had four balls of dough, instead of two.) Refrigerate for 2 hours or up to 2 days.
7. Measure out your cranberries.
8. Mix 1/4 cup of water with the cornstarch and set aside.
9. In a sauce pan, place cranberries, sugar, and orange zest and heat on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes. Once most of the cranberries are popped, add water & cornstarch mixture and continue heating and stirring until mixture is thick and chunky. Let cool completely.
10. On a baker's mat (I highly recommend these!) sprinkle confectioner's sugar and roll out one ball of the dough into a 12x7-inch rectangle. (If you do not chill your dough beforehand this step becomes very hard.)
11. Spread half of the cranberry mixture on each rectangle, to within 1 inch of the edges.
12. Start rolling your pinwheels. (The baker's mat helps with this part because the dough doesn't stick to it.)
13. Once all rolled up, wrap the dough in foil and place in freezer for up to 4 months.
14. If you are like me, you want cookies right away, so once the dough has pretty much frozen (4 hours or so) take it out and begin cutting. Cut the cookies to be about 1/3 inch thick. I tried to make these cookies without freezing the dough and the result was a squashed pinwheel. I suggest you freeze it for an easier cookie making process.
15. Place frozen slices on greased cookie sheets. (Just a note, there is no leavening agent in these cookies so you can place them very close together.) Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.
16. Let cool for 5 minutes on pan and remove to a wire rack to cool completely. You will end up with these beautiful, yummy, cranberry cookies that are so easy to make!

I hope you enjoy! I know I did!

Pumpkin Spice Cookies With Carmel Frosting

I love pumpkin. I love pumpkin pie, bread, soup, but most of all cookies! This is a twist on your typical pumpkin cookies. I added in lots of spices to them and topped them off with some caramelized sugar frosting! Hope you enjoy!!

Ingredients:

For the cookies you will need:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cups dark brown sugar

3/4 cups white sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 can of pumpkin puree

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves

For the frosting you will need:
1 can of Frosting (or make your own)
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup dark brown sugar

Powdered Sugar

To start, heat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl cream together 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cups dark brown sugar, and 3/4 cups white sugar.
Add in 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Mix together.
Mix in 1 can of pumpkin puree.
Add in 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon ground cloves.In a sifter, combine 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sift into bowl with pumpkin mixture and stir. Once batter is combined with flour mixture, drop spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Let them bake in an oven at 350 degree for 15-20 minutes.

Take cookies out of oven and let cool completely.

While cookies are cooling, start your frosting. In a pan, melt 1/2 cup butter.
Once melted, add in 3/4 cup dark brown sugar and cook until combined, reduced, and caramelized. Make sure you keep stirring this as it will scorch very fast!
In a bowl, add your canned frosting. (Yes, I am lazy.)
Once your sugar and butter mixture looks thick and combined, remove it from the heat.
Add the brown sugar and butter mixture to your canned frosting.
Combine together. Now, the frosting at this point will be sort of a glaze. This tastes great on the cookies! I, however, wanted a thicker frosting so I added in some powered sugar to thicken up the frosting. It's up to you.
Frost your cookies (sorry for the blurry pic!)
Once you have all your cookies frosted, dust with a little cinnamon.
And serve! Hope you enjoy! They were a hit at the party I attended!

~Beth