A flourless cookie with the best taste to work ratio
This time of the year it becomes almost impossible to find a decent cookie where I live. It’s Passover and all the bakeries are making cookies with flour replacements – not my cup of tea. What is a guy with a craving to do? Make them of course.
Luckily, a couple of weeks ago my wife decided to search the web for a flourless cookie – even though she knew I have absolutely no intention to bake cookies – I cook but I don’t bake. However, She didn’t have to work too hard at convincing me. She already bought all the ingredients – and we don’t want them to go to waste right? Luckily, the recipe looked easy, no egg separation, “folding” instructions, etc.
This cookie recipe is exceptionally easy and in my opinion, beats most cookies I ever tasted. It is also kosher for Passover and parve, gluten and lactose-free as it contains no flour and no milk products. The recipe is inspired by the recipe described here, with a few changes.
I used hazelnut butter as I find it better tasting than any other nut-based butter, you can try basically any nut-based butter you prefer, though peanut butter creates a bit of a weird texture in my opinion.
For the chocolate chips, I used 70% dark chocolate by Lindt instead of chocolate chips. Using great quality chocolate is really worth it to me, but you can use chocolate chips if you don’t feel like breaking a chocolate bar into tiny pieces.
If you are wondering – than yes, the egg is a must. In one of the first batches of cookies, my wife decided (against my advice) to try it without the egg – what could happen? Well, total failure is what happens. Without the egg, the water (from the maple) and the fat from the butter don’t emulsify and instead of fluffy cookies the water evaporates and you get a hard chunk of shapeless dry, and oily mess.
When done properly (with an egg), combining all the ingredients and mixing causes the dough to become toffee-like in texture, tempting to eat straight out of the bowl – but please don’t, it contains raw egg.
Ingredients
- 1 cup hazelnut butter [240 ml – 8oz]
- 100 ml maple syrup [3.4 fl oz]
- 100 gr dark chocolate or chocolate chips
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Break the chocolate into small pieces. You can cut the chocolate if it is at room temperature, or break it if in a nylon bag with something heavy.
- Scramble the egg in a bowl.
- combine all the ingredients and stir until it turns into a toffee-like texture.
- Using a teaspoon, place chunks (one heaped tsp) of the cookie dough on a baking sheet covered in baking paper. Keep big spaces between the cookies.
- Place the baking sheet in the middle rack in an oven preheated to 175°C(350°F) for 12-15 minutes, according to how hard you like your cookies and depending on your oven. I place it for 14 minutes.
- Take the cookies out and let them cool for about an hour. they should easily come off the baking paper. Serve at room temperature or from the refrigerator (I like mine cold).
