Little chewy walnut cookies, barely sweet, are topped with a rich chocolate orange ganache. The two elements, the walnut cookies, and the smooth ganache make a wonderful combination. They also just happen to be dairy, gluten, and grain free.
I promise that my site is not going to become a dessert blog (though some of you might appreciate that!). I’ve just been on a baking spree the last week or so! Several of you asked what cookie I was using in my picture for the chocolate ganache photo, this is it!
This recipe was adapted from a Spanish cookbook, where these tasty little morsels were based off of a traditional recipe. Like coconut macaroons, this recipe doesn’t contain any type of flour, but instead relies on eggs to hold it together. Unlike macaroons, it actually contains the yolks as well as the whites.
These cookies aren’t super sweet by themselves, which you don’t want them to be with a rich sweet ganache topping them. But if you wanted to make the cookies to eat by themselves you might want to make them a bit sweeter. In the original recipe, 3/4 cup of sugar was used. I am sure that you could use rapadura or maple sugar with good success.I think it would also be nice to up the orange peel if you weren’t using the ganache.
By the way, without the chocolate topping, these cookies are GAPS friendly.
Enjoy!
Spanish Walnut Cookies with Orange Chocolate Ganache
Makes between 40-50 small cookies
3 cups of walnuts
4 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup of honey
1/8 teaspoon white stevia powder1 recipe of chocolate ganache frosting, orange variation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1-In a food processor, grind the walnuts to a medium fine consistency. Do not turn into walnut butter!
2-In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, salt, zest, honey, and stevia powder, until well combined. Stir in the walnuts.
3-In a very clean metal, or other non-plastic bowl, beat the egg whites until firm and making peaks.
4-Gently pour half of the egg whites into the bowl and gently fold into the batter. Pour in the rest of the egg whites, and fold it in a second time.
5-On greased cookie sheets, drop teaspoon fulls of the batter a few inches apart (the cookies will spread a little).
6-Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned, and the cookie is cooked all the way through.
7-Remove to cooling racks (if you have any trouble with them falling part, you can let them cool a bit on the sheet and then remove). When cool frost with the ganache and serve!
If you liked this recipe, you might also like:
Lemon Curd Bars
Tangy Lemon Curd
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Yummm… those look great. When we finish our pan of lemon curd bars, which were delicious, I might have to try this one. Thanks!
Rebeca,
Glad you liked the lemon curd bars. I am very sad that all of mine are gone……;-)
Hi: What are your thoughs on Tropical Tradition Coconut Oil? They have a sale that ends today.
Hi D,
Everyone has their own preference for coconut oil as they do vary in taste. Some are more sweet, some more coconuty, some more oily. I truthfully haven’t tried Tropical Traditions coconut oil, so I can’t say for sure. I know one family who raves about it, while I know others who prefer other brands. So it’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess! Hope that helps a little. 🙂
I am SOO looking forward to making these cookies!
One question, though – do you think it’s worth soaking & drying the walnuts first? I’m wondering if the baking temperature makes it a moot point to do this step.
thanks!
Hi Jessie,
That’s a really good question. I had read that roasting nuts does neutralize the enzyme inhibitors (like the soaking does). However, I haven’t read for sure whether baking it does or not. I am hoping so as I sometimes use raw nuts. 🙂
What would you recommend to replace the white stevia in the recipe? I don’t like to use it because of its traditional use as a contraceptive. Would sucanat or honey work?
Hi – I have nominated you for a Lemonade Award! I have always thought it was important to serve my family healthy, homemade meals and I love reading your blog and enjoy learning more about incorporating new healthy choices into my cooking and baking! Come on over to my blog to pick up your fun Lemonade Award!
These look yummy. I have already made a few of your recipes since I found your site about a month ago. Thanks for taking the time to share them.
Wow!
Yay, dessert blogging! these look great! Do you think they’ll turn out ok if i omit the stevia powder?
Do you think the these cookies will taste just as good using butter instead of the coconut oil?? I am following the guidlines for eating right for your blood type and I can’t eat coconut or Stevia.
Is there an easy way to print the recipes from your blog? Suggestion, maybe you could add a ** Print Recipe icon ** to click on and print the recipe, for instance, as Heidi does over at 101Cookbooks? Just a thought. I have no idea on how to do it otherwise I’d share, lol.
;0) Loved the lemon curd bars! Made them today.
Be well.
I love the different flavours in this recipe 🙂
What is GAPS friendly??????
I made your chocolate ganache for a birthday cake today and we all loved it! Now I can’t wait to try it with these cookies. Thank you!
Jenny,
I think that you could either up the amount of honey, or instead just use rapadura/ sucanat (the Spanish recipe I was inspired by used 3/4 cup of sugar, which I am sure would be nice and sweet). If you try it, let me know how it turns out. 🙂
Christine,
Thank you! That’s so sweet of you!
Briana,
Welcome to my site!
Steph,
Man, that chocolate ganache is a killer, let me tell you! We all want these cookies again, since we ate them all up rather quickly!
Dessert Obsessed,
Check my answer to Jenny. I hope that helps!
Helen,
Butter would definitely be good in this recipe!
Leesie,
I need to figure out how to add that to my blog. I have no idea how!! So I will have to find some help. Thanks for the suggestion. 🙂 (By the way, a pretty easy way is to simply copy and paste the recipe into microsoft word and print from there)
Steva,
Thanks! Me too. 🙂
Michelle,
It’s a healing diet that I’ve mentioned before on this blog. Check out the archives for more info! 🙂
Christa,
Great! Glad you liked it. 🙂
Thanks for this, Kimi! I love grain-free, sugar-free recipes! I have lots of crispy walnuts that would probably love to morph into a cookie tomorrow!
Hi Kimi, these sound great! I rarely eat dessert food, but am always looking out for nutritious gluten and dairy free options. I’m not much of a cook, but I’ll have to give this recipe a try. Have you tried using sea salt in place of regular salt?
I’m not sure if you’ve talked about this already somewhere–but I was wondering what your thoughts are about agave. I saw a couple of things lately that said it is no better than HFCS. It can get so confusing trying to figure out which sweeteners are really the best. I know too much of ANY sweetener can be bad, but just trying to figure out what might be best–low GI, and most natural. I saw somewhere in your past entries about coconut sugar. I am going to look for some today. Are you still using/liking it?
Have you ever used Erythritol? I bought some a while back because I saw it used in a low-carb blog. I have used it some, but not enough to really have an opinion about it:) Thanks for an awesome and informative blog!
These sound like a delicious combo. I am wondering if pecans could be substituted for the walnuts, I have an abundance of them right now.
I enjoy everything that you share. Always something to learn.
Thank you!
I noticed someone else mentioned the use of other types of nuts… We are planning on trying this recipe w/ almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans. In our house walnuts are considered yucky (such a technical term) plus my husband is mildly allergic to them. If you would like I could let you know our results using each type of nut and the maple sugar. It will be a week or two as I am baking up donated cookie dough for a LARGE bake sale fundraiser on Friday.
Thanks, Peggy
Peggy,
I would love to hear how the cookies come out with almonds! I am allergic to walnuts, so that would be a good alternative. Hope yours come out yummy!
Thanks,
Bete
Just tried these – yummy! Husband cannot have any gluten, so this is a great cookie recipe for him. For some reason, I thought they’d be crispy, though. I wonder how to make them crispy. I think I’d like them better if they were. Hmmm….any ideas?
Thanks for all the great recipes! Your recipe index is my primary cookbook now that we discovered all of us have food allergies!
I just made these minus the frosting. They were fantastic. They remind me of madelaines in texture,very cake like with a very mildly sweet citrus flavor. I burnt the edges of the cookies from my first pan, so I lowered the temperature to 300 and the time to 10 minutes and had no problem after that. I used a thicker cookie pan with the last 2 batches and they took longer to cook so maybe I wouldn’t have had a problem if I had used those from the beginning. Let me tell you, even with the burnt edges I ate all 12 cookies from the first batch. The others turned out perfect and were so good that after five I had to stop myself from eating another dozen. I can totally imagine these layered
with coconut whipped cream or vanilla frosting too. Seriously the best gluten free cookie recipe I have made so far and so easy and one I don’t feel guilty feeding the kids. My two year old already ate 4 and really likes them. I have a feeling we will be fighting over these. Thank you so much for posting this.
1 recipe of chocolate ganache frosting, orange variation – HOW DO YOU MAKE THE GANACHE BECOME AN ORANGE VARIATION?
THANKS!
The variation is at the bottom of the ganache recipe. 🙂