Cookies!!!!!

When I went to lunch with my "bestie" Amy the other day, we stopped by Sur le Table in the Domain to check out all the goodies. They had cookie cutters on sale and I just couldn't resist getting a few shapes that represented my favorite things: the great state of Texas, cowboy boots, and of course, HIPPOS!

I've been dying to use these things all week, but I wanted to find a paleo cookie recipe first. So I hopped on paleofood.com. There were several cookie recipes to choose from, but I found one that didn't contain eggs (my roommate is allergic, so anything I can cook paleo that she can also enjoy, I'm all for!). It seemed super simple too.

Paleo Cookie Recipe (~ 2 dozen cookies)

1 cup raw honey

1 cup walnuts

2 cups almonds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

The first step was to heat up the honey so it was a little bit more manageable. I did this over very low heat in a saucepan for about 4 minutes, until I could smoothly stir the honey and it would easily drip off the spoon. I didn't want to heat it too much because the appeal of raw honey is that it is unheated and unfiltered!

While the honey was heating, I chucked the nuts into the food processor to make a flour/meal. Most websites will tell you to carefully process the nuts into flour because you could over-do it and end up with a nut butter. This was not a concern of mine, since some other paleo cookie recipes called for nut butter (I'm assuming to help hold the cookie together). But I still wanted a flour-y consistency.

Then, I mixed in the spices (eyeballed it) and the coconut to the flour mixture. Drizzled the honey in small batches on top and mixed it all together. When using cookie cutters on normal, non-paleo sugar cookies, you're supposed to chill the dough, so I figured that'd be a good idea for paleo nut flour cookies too. I chilled it in the bowl for about an hour, until the dough got a little harder.

Now I was ready to use the cookie cutters! I preheated the oven to 350' F and got out some parchment paper on a cookie sheet. I rolled out the dough, which worked surprisingly well considering I didn't flour the rolling pin or the board (nothing stuck to either). Cut my cookies and placed them on the parchment paper-covered cookie sheet. Baked for 10 minutes.

So I thought that because the cookies didn't have traditional flour or eggs in them, they wouldn't bloat and get puffy. WRONG. Check out the before and after photos below (I'll post better ones soon, but these were taken with my camera phone).

Before...

...and after, completely baked and bloated :(

Please tell me you can still *kinda* make out the cowboy boot, hippo, and Texas down in the bottom right corner!

The cookies actually taste pretty good, a little on the chewier side, so be warned if you're a crispy cookie kind of person. I think the honey tastes a little too sweet, but that's just honey for you. I used raw Texas Wildflower honey, maybe there's a different variety that has a less sweet or noticeably overpowering taste. The original recipe also called for ginger (I'm assuming the spice powder, and not raw), which I didn't have and that may have counterbalanced the sweetness better.

Overall, a successful adventure with paleo baking!