Today was the first day of college for my husband. I was able to send with him a fairly nice little lunch, and am planning on making some more snacks for him today for the rest of the week. I thought in preparation of the Nourishing Portable Food Carnival, (You can read about post ideas for the carnival here) coming up this Wednesday, I would share a simple cookie recipe that I just baked up this morning.
I love how fast and simple these cookies are to make. Because it doesn’t contain flour, you don’t even have to worry about soaking it! This is a great last minute recipe (rare to find when you cook like I do!). Look at how few ingredients it takes to bake.
I bet I will be making these many times. I stumbled across a similar recipe in a comment section of another blog. It seems that everyone’s mother baked something similar to this recipe growing up. I have made them a little more healthy by using whole cane sugar ( I used the brand rapadura). This unrefined sugar actually has many minerals in it, so it doesn’t stress the body in the same way that white sugar does. You can see that it looks a little like brown sugar.
The cocoa nibs adds texture, flavor and interest, but you could also use chocolate chips. I choose to use roasted almond butter, but you can use peanut butter or another favorite nut butter. I definitely recommend roasted nut butters when you aren’t soaking the nuts. Not only do they have a better flavor, they seem to be easier on the stomach as well. After I made them, I realized they are dairy and gluten free! So it’s a great cookie for those with allergies to dairy and wheat.
These cookies are slightly chewy, slightly crunchy and sweet. I used crunchy almond butter, so my cookies were speckled with both cocoa nibs and little pieces of almonds, which made them very pretty. Even though the cocoa nibs aren’t sweet by themselves, the cookies are sweet enough to carry them. My toddler loved them.
Nut Butter Cookies-Makes about 24 small cookies
1 cup of rapadura, sucanat, or maple sugar
1 cup of roasted and salted nut butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons cocoa nibs (optional)
1-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a cookie sheet (I use coconut oil).
2-In a medium size bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the cocoa nibs and cream with a hand mixer. When well combined, add the cocoa nibs.
3-Roll into one inch balls and place on the greased cookie sheet, leaving space for them to spread. Press down with a fork, criss-crossing until slightly flattened.
4-Bake for 10-15 minutes until browned around the edges. Mine took about 13 minutes. Remove and cool on cooling racks and enjoy!
UPDATE: I let my extended family taste test this recipe and they all thought they were great. My mom actually thought they were the “best” cookies. I did want to mention that by the next day, they will lose most of their chewiness, and become quite crispy. I like my cookies crispy, but if you want a softer cookie, you may want to under cook them slightly so that they stay softer.
This is definitely a recipe I will be using for my family on a consistent basis!
This post is part of Kitchen Tip Tuesday.
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Ooo…yum! We just found out that we need to go gluten free…argh! These will be a great treat! You may have saved me for my son’s 3rd birthday party coming soon! 🙂
We can’t use nut butter but I’ll try it with sunflower seed butter.
Linds,
Good luck on going gluten free. 🙂 My family was gluten free for several months, so I know it’s a challenge at first.
I didn’t even know there was a sunflower seed butter! Interesting!
It reminded me that Nourishing Traditions has a sunflower seed brownie recipe in it. If you have it, take a peek at it. It also doesn’t contain any flour, but it does contain a few walnuts (maybe you could leave those out, if you can’t have nuts). I’ve always wanted to try this recipe. It seems like it might fit your needs well.
Have a great birthday party!
Oh, yummy! These sound great. It’s so hard to find gluten-free goodies. I wonder if they would make good ice cream sandwiches with coconut milk ice cream in the middle. Do you think so? Or are they not that kind of cookie?
Alison,
What a great idea! Yum!!!!! I think that it would work. 🙂
Those look really good, Kimi! We love nut butter, and I can’t believe how simple they are! I’ve been back on eggs out of necessity (on the Maker’s Diet- otherwise I fear I would starve!), and so far my eczema isn’t too bad, so we’ll see.
Anyways, a must try!
Those sound really good. I enjoy your posts and recipes!
I’m sure I’m opening a LARGE can here by asking this, you mentioned that you use whole can sugar b/c “This unrefined sugar actually has many minerals in it, so it doesn’t stress the body in the same way that white sugar does”- Can you tell me, in a nutshell, why you steer clear from white sugar? or where I can go (without spending an eternity searching and reading) to find out more information of the ill effects of it on our bodies?
thanks! have a great week!
The virgin diet changed my life for the better. JJ explains so many misconceptions about foods and food allergies, including sugars. I bought the book from kobo for my ereader and it was worth every penny and more.
I can’t wait to try these! I am going to try using honey or agave nectar or date sugar as the sweetener.
I have a box of quinoa flakes that I have not looked at until last night when I discovered an interesting, simple recipe for quinoa banana muffins. So I made them and added blueberries from the back yard. Oh my gosh they were great! They were good enough to feed to guests who wouldn’t know the difference between healthy and not! I am going to post the recipe….but wanted to pass on that quinoa was definitely an interesting, easy ingredient and healthy!
Thanks for the cookie recipe. I LOVE cocoa nibs!
Thanks so much! I have been slowly gathering all my gluten-free ingredients over this week and finding recipes that will actually taste good. We have a peanut butter cookie recipe under our belts and are ready for the next challenge. I do believe we shall try these cookies. They look lovely.
Hi, this recipe looks amazing and i totally want to try it! I dont’ want to go into town to get ingredients i dont have (we live a ways out) so i’m just wondering if i could use white sugar or regular brown sugar in place of the maple sugar? thanks!
I just had to make this recipe the moment I saw it!! They turned out so well and they taste AMAZING!! They’re so good, I can’t help but have more than one. Thank you so much!
This looks like a revised version of the 3-ingredient “easy peanut butter cookie” recipe – what a great idea, never thought to try it with another kind of nut butter. Thank you. I wonder if it’ll work with pumpkin seed butter-? Pumpkin seeds have omega-3 I hear.
Re. white sugar – it’s highly processed. Sally Fallon is part of what I call “natural health gurus,” who believe that anything that the body does not recognize is food or that is not whole food is bad. Regular brown sugar is white sugar with maple syrup added to it. I still can’t figure out why raw sugars are so expensive, why it costs MORE to process cane sugar (and they all come from cane, don’t they?) LESS…
On a different note, I’m thinking of staying off sugar, suspect I’m addicted to it. I don’t say it to be flip or funny, but seriously can’t stop myself once I start. Unlike My Year Without, I do not like cacao nibs, think they are OK, tolerable but NO WAY are they synonymous with Dove or Lindt dark chocolates. Also, Toll House chocolate chips are $3-4/lb. vs. cacao nibs at $11/lb. Not cost-effective for a family of four with one income. With that being said, I’m experimenting with stevia and erythritol. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, so it’s a no-go in Sally Fallon’s book (and all of Weston A. Price people). But it tastes pretty good, has zero calories and does not spike blood sugar. Stevia works ok, but you need to add bulk to the recipe and some stevia products are quite bitter, but a little goes a long way. Then there’s SweetPerfection, which is $20/lb. (!!!), made with oligofructose-?? If anyone has any info on oligofructose (supposed to be like inulin, a prebiotic), let me know. It seems to be the latest and greatest sugar sub, all-natural too.
Sorry, but brown sugar has molasses added back to it after processing, NOT maple syrup.
Hey K–
I’ve just been turned on to this website–thanks so much for all your work and loving attention! I am gluten- and dairy-free, so I’m always looking for good recipes. A question– I made this recipe today and, although I loved the flavor, I found them WAY too sweet. No wonder–they have over a tsp. of sugar per cookie! I’d like to cut down the sweetener by at least half, but I don’t know how to do this and still have them come out ok texture-wise. Any ideas? Also, I like to use agave nectar as my sweetener–how would you make these using a liquid sweetener??
Thank you SO much! I look forward to your feedback.
–Joyce
Joyce,
Yes, these cookies are very sweet! They were based off of a “regular” recipe, so I was showing how to make them a bit healthier. 😉 You could try to just cut the sugar in half and cook them like that, actually. As far as agave syrup goes, I think I have made honey versions of these at certain points (but I can’t give measurements as I just eye balled it). But I do think it would work. 🙂 Sorry that’s so vague! Hope it still helps out a bit.
My children thank you 🙂 Once again a wonderful recipe.
I’m enjoying the recipes on your blog very much. I was diagnosed pre-diabetic a few months ago, so have cut out a lot of ‘junk’ in my diet. I’ve been reading Sally Fallon’s book and have enjoyed finding blogs that go along with her way of doing things. Seems once I started looking, they’ve been popping up everywhere.
I’ve been using palm sugar for the few treats that I make or for the family treats. It’s very good and you can substitute it one for one. I would mix it with any liquids that are in the recipe first because it seems to need some time to dissolve. I do find that since I’ve pretty much cut out sweets, that my tastes have changed to where I don’t like too much sweet anymore.
Thanks for a great blog – and all the recipes! It’s a treasure for sure!
Hey, this recipe looks delicious, but (As someone with a MS in nutrition) I would warn that you are only fooling yourselves if you think this is healthy just because you use sugar that isn’t bleached. Sugar is sugar irrespective of how processed. These cookies are half sugar (not including sugar from the nut butter that you choose to use). Delicious, yes. Healthy, no. Good for a diabetic, definitely only in moderation. On that note, can’t wait to use this recipe tonight to get rid of some left over almond butter. 😀
Hey Kristina,
I encourage you to read my Q & A about this topic here. Here I address why unrefined sugars do have an advantage. The reason I use words like “healthy”, are so that people who do google searches for “healthy cookies” can find a recipe like this. I don’t think a recipe like this is appropriate for a diabetic. For a less sweet nut cookie, check out my latest recipe.
And, after reading this post, I realized that I just said, “I have made them a little more healthy by using whole cane sugar ( I used the brand rapadura)”. I definitely stand by that. Read the post linked to above for why I think that using raparuda is a healthier choice. 🙂
just made these. they’re awesome. I had some almond butter that had been sitting around for a while I wanted to use up. Instead of cocoa nibs i smashed up an old chili chocolate bar and added some cinnamon. The extra spice was really nice.
kimi,
i’m alittle confused about your recipe. in the body of it, you state to mix all ingredients, except the cocoa nibs AND CREAM. don’t see in the recipe where it calls for cream?
oops! just re-read the recipe. it says cream WITH a hand mixer~
love your site.
blessings, karen
I tried these with tahini instead of almond butter – and raisins instead of choc chips and added some cinnamon and they were absolutely delicious!
I just made these with 1/2 cup of sucanut and they were delicious! They were quite sweet! I got about 18 cookies from the recipe. Thanks!
Made these today and they turned out great. I used 1/2 c. coconut sugar plus 3 TBSP of honey as the sweetener and added a generous dash of cinnamon (didn’t add any chocolate). I baked the cookies for 15 min. on a silpat mat. The kids loved these!