almond biscuits/cookies

There are a few American words I’ve inadvertently adopted since living in the US for a decade or so. One of them is “cookie,” despite the word I know for those delicious morsels being “biscuit”. I don’t think it was deliberate, it just happened over time because every time I would say “biscuit” to an American, they’d think I was referring to a scone (English style, not American style, which is another issue in itself). So, here are some delicious biscuits/cookies I made today. They are grain free, as most of my usual diet is that way inclined. These are made, primarily, of almond flour. I adapted the recipe from Elana Amsterdam’s vegan peanut butter cookie recipe and made an almond butter version instead. We mostly don’t eat peanut butter due to the inherent aflatoxins in all but the valencia variety (you can do your own research on that if you like. There are so many opinions out there that we’re just being cautious about it. Also, my naturopath agrees that avoiding it is best and hers is an opinion I trust). Until extremely recently I was using Bob’s Red Mill almond flour, but I have seen the light and moved to Honeyville almond flour, which is much finer ground and far superior. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Almond Butter Biscuits/Cookies – makes about 24

2 cups almond flour (I used one cup of Bob’s Red Mill and one of Honeyville, as I was finishing up the former, so that’s the different sized particles you can see in the picture)
1/2 tsp celtic sea salt (normal sea salt is fine, too, I just dig the celtic stuff)
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup creamy almond butter
3/4 cup of coconut sugar (or sweetener of your choice)
4 tbsp coconut oil (or oil of your choice)
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond essence
A few tbsp milk (I used almond milk, but any milk will do, I should think)

Preheat your oven to 350F/~175C) and get your cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper ready.
Combine dry ingredients in mixer.
Add wet ingredients to mixer and mix until combined. At this stage it will look like a rather crumbly mixture.
Add your milk, 1 tbsp at a time, until you have what looks like a stiff, thick cookie/biscuit dough.
Roll tablespoon sized dough pieces into balls and place on your cookie sheet. Lightly press with a fork (don’t squish them too much).
Cook for at least 8 minutes. Elana’s recipe called for 6-12 minutes, but I found that about 10 minutes worked for me, but they can go for a little longer if you like. They are very soft when they come out of the oven and they harden/set as they cool down, so don’t be surprized if you think that they’re not cooked. They are and they are insanely delicious, despite looking like little boring blobs ;).

If something here doesn’t make sense, just ask me and I’ll try my best to explain :).