I’ve been having some trouble with will power lately. Specifically when it comes to sugar cravings. It all started with my wedding a couple weeks ago (yay!) when the catering company left us an entire fridge shelf filled with gluten-free mini key lime pies. Suddenly, it was key lime pie for breakfast, snack, “lunch dessert” (which normally does not exist in my household), and of course, dinner dessert. Yeah – a mini key lime pie is one of those awesome desserts you can justify eating for breakfast – I mean, you’d eat a lemon bar, right? What’s the diff?
After the pie fiasco, I was at my local grocery store when I spotted a ridiculous sale: THREE Ben and Jerry’s ice creams for ten bucks. WHAT?! That’s basically like getting a whole pint of ice cream free, given that the lowest price I’ve ever seen for Ben and Jerry’s is around five bucks. I’m actually not a huge purchaser of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream because it has a LOT of crap in it compared to other comparable brands like Haagan-Dazs (and when I do buy ice cream I normally try to buy organic, grass fed milk, etc. anyway which rules out both of the above-mentioned big guys) but…I mean three pints for ten bucks?! And Ben and Jerry have been super politically involved lately – I should support them for that, right? I don’t know if I’m convincing you, but I sure convinced myself.
Now, once you have three pints of ice cream in your freezer, it is very, VERY hard not to indulge at every possible occasion. Especially when your freezer is packed full as can be and you can barely close the door because of all the gluten-free flours you have stuck inside. So really, every time I went to the freezer to get some ice cream, I was actually just doing my duty to clean it out. Three pints take up a lot of space, and we needed that space.
Which leads me to these cinnamon cookies. Another way to clear freezer space, of course. I had just 1/2 a cup of white sugar left – so why not make some cookies and get rid of the bag? I would actually be ridding my freezer of sugar in the long run, so it was totally justifiable. In fact, these cookies would be great mixed in to some of my remaining ice cream …
Okay, so you can see how things might have spiraled a bit out of control. But hear me out – the recipe for these cookies is actually super awesome. And if you are going through something similar and want to indulge a sugar craving fast, these guys are really quick and easy. Just five ingredients, completely grain-free, completely vegan, lovely cinnamon flavor, wonderful chewy texture. Make them! You can stop eating sugar tomorrow.
A couple notes about the recipe:
– Almond flour varies greatly across brands. I use Honeyville almond flour in all my recipes, because I can order it fairly cheaply in bulk. (I definitely recommend this way of purchasing almond flour because one bag of Bob’s Red Mill is usually over twelve bucks!) Please feel free to try this with other brands of almond flour, but keep in mind that you may need to make some adjustments. For this particular recipe, I would venture a guess that Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur would work just fine, but I haven’t tested it.
-These cookies are on the sweet side. If you prefer less sweet, use slightly less sugar.
-This recipe yields 10 cookies. Leftover cookies can be stored outside the fridge.
Chewy Cinnamon Cookies
- 1 cup blanched almond flour
- ½ cup cane sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ cup coconut oil, melted (measured in liquid form)
- 2 tablespoons flax egg (see below)
* To make a flax egg, mix 1 tablespoon of flax meal with 3 tablespoons water and let it sit in the fridge for 15 minutes. Stir it again before measuring out your two tablespoons.
Directions:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350°F.
Stir together the almond flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix in the coconut oil and flax egg.
Form the cookies by taking heaping tablespoons of the dough, rolling them into balls, and flattening each ball. They should be about 2 inches across and 3/8 inch thick.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the bottoms look golden brown and crisp. The tops will still be fragile and soft – they will firm up during the cooling process. Let cool for at least 10 minutes and then enjoy!
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