This is the second cookie that I made after my test yesterday. Remember how I bought and opened three jars of almond butter at once a couple weeks ago? Yeah, so I thought I would make cookies and use my peanut butter recipe and just use almond butter for the peanut butter, but I got online looking around and somehow wound up on a natural foods blog with a recipe for maple almond butter cookies. I do try to eat healthy with lots of fruit and veggies and stay active by running but sweets are definitely my downfall. I don’t generally try to bake “healthy” desserts. I’m more likely to just run an extra couple miles and eat a full-fat and calorie brownie than one made with applesauce and black beans or whatever. If I want a brownie, I want a REAL brownie (or any other kind of dessert) =). And while this recipe isn’t really “healthy”, I guess the whole-wheat flour and vegetable oil (rather than white flour and butter) makes it a little healthier and the maple syrup (rather than sugar) makes it all-natural? I’m not sure, but either way these were really tasty and probably my favorite of the three kinds of cookies that I made. And now that I have nearly a 5 lb. bag of white whole wheat flour I guess I’ll start experimenting with it too! Enjoy!
Maple Almond Butter Cookies
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped almonds
Preheat the oven to 350*F. In a large bowl, combine natural almond butter, maple syrup, oil and vanilla extract until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix together whole wheat pastry flour, baking soda and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, along with chopped almonds, and stir until just combined. Let sit for five minutes. Roll heaping tablespoons of dough into balls, flatten to about 1/3 of an inch and place onto cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
*from Sweet and Natural