Cashew Cookie Butter.

Rarely do I ever see a recipe online and go out and buy all the ingredients and then make it.  But I did exactly that with this recipe (and in less than 24 hours!)... it just looked too good.  This recipe comes from Studio Cuisine blog.  I love to try different combinations of nut butters, like my cinnamon honey almond butter, and this one was fantastic!  It tastes amazing -- just like sugar cookies! But it has none of the undigestible grains or refined sugars, and the cashews make it full of protein.  Therefore it makes a great snack, or a great spread for breakfast!  If you love cashew butter, you'll love this cookie butter.

Cashew Cookie Butter.
    adapted from Studio Cuisine
    makes one cup

    1.5 cups  organic whole raw cashews
    1/3 cup  unsweetened organic banana chips
    1 T  organic coconut sugar/palm sugar - source
    4 tsp  organic coconut oil
    1/3 tsp  vanilla
    1/4 tsp  cream of tartar (optional - for flavor)
    1/4 tsp  baking soda (optional - for flavor)

To make your cookie butter:
  1.  In a food processor, blend coconut sugar, banana chips and cashews together until it become homogenous and balls up.
  2.  Add honey, vanilla, cream of tartar, baking soda, and blend again.  Lastly, add coconut oil and blend until smooth.  If you'd like your butter a little more runny, add more coconut oil.  Mine was a perfect consistency at just 4 tsp.
  3.  Store in an airtight container.  It keeps outside for a little over a week.  For longer storage, refrigerate.

I can't wait to try some of this in my Vitamix! Make sure you share it with your friends :)

Primal Pea(nut) Butter Cookies.

As soon as I typed the title to this post I realized what I had done.  I just called peanuts Primal!  Peanuts are actually a legume (which is like a bean), not a nut, and legumes are not Primal.  Oops!  But if you're like me, you are Primal, but you still eat peanut butter.  I don't eat gobs of it like I used to, but on occasion, it's great!  For those of you who are pure Primalists, try making these cookies with almond butter, cashew butter, pecan butter, tahini, the list goes on!

I love this recipe because it has barely 6 ingredients.  And it's so easy!  You can even let your kids help you make these!  I made the ones with MMs specifically for my brother, but his favorite was actually the chocolate/sea salt combination.

Primal Pea(nut) Butter Cookies.
    makes 14 cookies

    8 oz  (1 cup)  organic creamy unsalted peanut butter (best is fresh ground or homemade)
    4 oz  (1/2 cup)  organic coconut sugar
    4 oz  (1/2 cup)  blanched almond flour
    1  happy pastured egg
    1/2 tsp  baking soda
    pinch unrefined sea salt

    Optional toppings:  various candies, sea salt, dark chocolate, raisins

To make your cookies:
  1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (mine is convection).
  2.  Combine all ingredients in a bowl with a electric mixer.
  3.  Use your hands or a cookie scoop to make balls of the dough.  Place peanut butter balls on a silicone lined baking sheet.
  4.  Bake for 7 minutes, then remove from the oven and make criss-cross design with a fork.  This will flatten the cookies.  Add toppings if desired.
  5.  Bake for 5 more minutes or until golden brown and chocolate has melted.
  6.  Remove from oven and let cool on the sheet.  Carefully transfer to a wire rack when cool and place cookies in the fridge to set the chocolate.  Enjoy!

Don't forget to share! (It won't be easy :)

Grain-free Lemon Biscuit Cookies

Need a grain-free and low-sugar but delicious and simple treat recipe?  This is it!  These biscuit like cookies are perfect for dunking into some raw milk eggnog, which is exactly what I did this past Christmas Eve!  The grain-free members of the family were so happy to have a fun cookie option.  Look at those shapes!  To get the shapes, I pressed 1 Tbsp of the cookie dough into a Christmas shaped cookie pan I scored from Bed Bath and Beyond last January which I bought in anticipation for this years Christmas baking.  It was a great find!  These cookies are also great on their own, thanks to their buttery cake-like texture and fresh lemon zest.  And kids will love to decorate these little guys with different colored icing!!

Lemon Biscuit Cookies
    makes almost 24 cookies

    3 cups  almond flour - source
    1 cup  organic coconut flour - source
    zest of one lemon
    1/2 tsp  unrefined sea salt - source
    1/4 cup  organic raw honey - source
    1  happy pastured egg
    1/4 cup  palm/coconut sugar - source
    1/2 cup (1 stick)  cold grassfed butter - source
    1/2 tsp  baking powder - source
    2 tsp  vanilla extract - source

To make your biscuit cookies:
    1.  Preheat oven to 350.
    2.  In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients.  Zest lemon on top and mix again.
    3.  Take your butter, cut it into pieces with a sharp knife and work the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands until there are no big chunks.  BEWARE - this cookie dough is extremely good and quite addicting.  There's no such thing as a "small taste" of this dough.  Only the brave can have just a little bit, it's that good.  And if you eat less cookie dough you can form more cookies ;)
    4.  Press the cookie dough into your desired pan or mold filling it slightly less than completely full.  Bake until the edges of the cookies are slightly browned and flex to the touch.  The tops of the cookies will not brown.  The bottoms of the cookies WILL brown and you cannot see this happening.  Err on the side of less cooked than over baked.  Let cool for about 10-15 minutes and then carefully take cookies out of the mold onto a baking rack to cool completely.

This was my first batch of cookies, see how well they brown? Be careful!

    5.  Serve warm and slathered in butter, or cold and dunked in eggnog or you could even dip them in a homemade chocolate sauce or frost them with icing, or devour them plain!

Not all the cookie dough fit into my special pan, so the rest I scooped out and pressed into mini muffin tins!  They are fun to nibble.  The lemon zest is fantastic!!

These cookies are very versatile and have a mild flavor that goes with anything!  Eat them for breakfast as a biscuit, or crumbled on top of yogurt, for lunch dipped in eggnog, as a snack anytime of the day or for dinner as a not-too-sweet finish to the meal.  You could even fold some poppyseeds into the batter to go with the lemon zest!  Don't forget, you can make these anytime of year, just use a non-Christmas shaped cookie pan :)