Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Love almonds, love chocolate, love cookies. On top of that, these are no fuss cookies. No fancy equipment required. And the best part:

These are easy to make.

These are healthy, gluten free and dairy free.

These are "melt in your mouth" delicious.

Initially these were intended to be for my husband's snacks and these are gluten-free. But honestly speaking, you will not miss the gluten here. I have no gluten intolerance but I love these just as much as any other. 

I have made this from scratch- blanched almonds myself and made a paste. However, you can easily substitute with almond meal. But you will miss the fun of removing the almond skins. Yes, I said fun. Especially if you have kids!

How to blanch almonds and have fun-

Soak almonds in hot water for 5 min. The skin will be soft and can be removed very easily.

The fun part is: If you press one end of the almond with the tip of your fingers, you can "launch" the almond. Shoot it like a rocket to the other side of your room. This is great fun if you don't mind almonds all over your kitchen :)

Now to the recipe:

You need (for 40 cookies):

2 cups blanched almonds (see above) or almond meal

½ cup almond milk (you may use full fat milk, almond milk for dairy free cookies)

½ cup maple syrup (you may use honey or agave or sugar)

¼ cup oil

⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt

How:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Grind the blanched almonds (see above-how to blanch almonds) to a smooth paste with the help of milk.

Add all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add the chocolate chips last.

Place about a tablespoon of the dough an inch apart from each other on the baking sheet and bake for 30 min or until the top of the cookies become slightly brown. 

The cookies will still be soft. Cool them and they'll harden.

Enjoy them anytime of the day.

Little Hearts

Valentine's day is still a couple of months away but why wait till then? Christmas is almost here. Enjoy the festive season with these Little Hearts.

I am no baker, in fact I know nothing about baking. I can not even count how many times I have failed in baking a cake or even brownies. But this, my friends, I must say is the easiest baking. And if I can get it right, anyone can.


Palmiers are pastry that have the shape of a butterfly but I like to think of them as the shape of a heart.

It was quite by accident that I bought this pastry some years ago and got hooked on to them ever since. They are sweet, buttery and crispy goodies and surprisingly simple to make!

Palmiers are made of puff pastry. You can make puff pastry from scratch if you want but why take the pain when you can get such nice puff pastry right in the freezer section of your grocery store. I made cinnamon palmiers.

Ingredients:

1 puff pastry sheet [I used pepperidge farm]

½ cup granulated sugar

½ tbsp ground cinnamon

1 egg

1 tbsp water

Method:

Thaw the puff pastry following the instructions on the package.

Heat the oven to 400°.

Roll it out with a a rolling pin to approximately 16 in  by 10 in in size. [For easy clean up, tape a sheet of parchment paper on my kitchen table/ whatever work space you chose 2.5 feet in length. Put half of the sugar on the workspace, put the pastry on it and then roll the pastry. This will prevent it from sticking, and also there will be sugar on the outer surface.]

Mix the cinnamon powder with the rest of the sugar and spread uniformly on the pastry sheet.

Since I made little hearts (half in size compared to palmiers), I cut the pastry in half length wise and worked separately with each half.

Now fold long side of the rectangle such the the edge meets halfway till the middle. DO it on both sides and then fold again such that they meet in the middle. Look at the pic below to help you. It will look like a log.

Add 1 tbsp of water to the egg in a bowl and whisk it with a fork. Brush both sides of the log with the egg wash [This will give a nice golden brown color on baking].

Then cut the long roll in pieces ~half an inch in width. I made ~60 hearts from 1 puff pastry sheet.

The key to a nice heart shape is that you fan out the ends of the pieces when you lay them cut side up on a parchment paper lined baking tray.

Place them on the lower rack in your oven.

Bake them for 10 min on one side. Then turn them over and bake the other side for another 5-6 min till golden brown in color. 

Cool them down on a rack. Enjoy!

These looked golden brown and so tempting out of the oven!

Enjoy them anytime of the day. You can store the extras away in an air-tight container to relish for the next few days. But they hardly ever stay that long, at least for me!!

Next time will be simple sugar palmiers dipped in chocolate! I already can't wait to finish these and make another batch.