chocolate covered almond cookies

These cookies were created on a sleepy Sunday morning; part dream, part reality. By the time my kitchen was filled with the smell of yummy goodness, I was awake and completely excited by what I had created. It was a very domestic feeling. Domestic because of the use of almonds in the cookies. Now, don't freak out on me and resolve to never make this recipe just because it means making your own almond milk and meal. Making your own nut milk is perhaps one of the most rewarding domestic tricks out there. It sounds weird/hard but is completely easy and satisfying...on many levels. There is no subsitute for homemade nut milk- none! And you don't need fancy tools to do it either. See recipe and instruction below.

The almond flavor is really captured in this recipe due to all the true to almond elements. It's not extrememly sweet and gives a nice crunch- leaving bits of almond in your teeth, just like biting into a chocolate covered almond! It reminds me of those chocolate oatmeal drop cookies of my childhood- the kind my dad used to make by heating the ingredients on the stove, dropping them on the cookie sheet and waiting (very impatientely) for the cookies to harden. Most of the time we ended up burning our fingers and/or eating liquidy cookies because they were irresistable. But those cookies involved copious amounts of butter, sugar, milk chocolate and hydrogenated peanut butter. Good for carelfree children, not good for health minded adults. But since these non-vegan/non-healthy/artery clogging flavors developed my palete, I cannot stand to eat a mediocre, tough, tasteless, rock hard cookie just because it's "healthy". I would rather eat butter than that crap. Since I really don't want either the "crap" or the "butter", I must slave away in my tiny kitchen developing flavors reminiscent of my childhood that also meet my high standard of what a vegan sweet should be. All this said, it is not always my goal to try and copy flavors of those less desirable fattening confections. I like to develop new flavors, one's that are less shocking than tooth throbing sugaryness and an overall oiliness. I like to eat whole foods, using what nature provides to create a more balanced personal universe. Well, whatever your approach is, I bet you would like these cookies. When my personal food critic (aka, boyfriend Tanner) woke up this particular morning, shaggy haired and sleepy eyed, and popped one of these cookies into his mouth- I knew I had made bloggable and keepable cookies when his eyes light up (in a good way). He said many nice things, never taking his eyes of the cooling rack, then said, "It sure didn't make very many".

Tanner is right, this recipes yields a dozen little gems. Not nearly enough for households with at least one raging sweet tooth (that would be two in mine). However, I'm keeping the recipe as is becuase I think for a regular batch of cookies to be enojoyed with friends or at home, this amount is perfect. And remember my little post about the small yield to make yourself feel better when you have eaten all the cookies in one day! And if you don't agree with my minimalist rantings- double it!

homemade almond milk:
1 1/4 C raw and unsalted almonds
4 C filtered water
pinch of salt
*if you want more of a sweet milk, try adding a couple T's of agave nectar, cinnamon for spice, or do it up with some cocoa powder. add these elements when blending.
strainer with a square of cheesecloth
1 quart pitcher

easy, easy....just soak the almonds in a bowl with a lot of filterd water (covering several inches above almonds) for 8 hours

drain and rinse almonds and place in a blender with the 4 C water and salt. add sweeteners at this point. blend for a minute or two.

pour the mixture through the cheesecloth lined strainer putting a pitcher underneath to catch liquid.

that's it. you are ready to use that milk on cereal, in tea, or in chocolate covered almond cookies! the "meal" that is leftover in the cheesecloth needs to be squeezed and either toasted in the oven (200 degress,spared out on a pan, until dried out and crumbly) or in a dehydrator for several hours. store in a glass container in the fridge.

milk will go bad quick. if you are not going to drink it within a couple of days, i recommend freezing it in ice cube trays to be thrown in with smoothies or even made into popsicles.

the meal however will last a while if dried out properly. perhaps try throwing it in with some homemade granola??














for the cookies:

you will need these:
2 medium mixing bowls
wooden spoon
cookie sheet, greased

flour mixture:
1 C almond meal
1 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 T cocoa powder

liquid mixture:
1/2 C unrefined organic sugar
1/4 (scant) C brown sugar
1/4 C canola oil
1/3 C almond milk
1/2 tsp almond extract

pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease your cookie sheet

combine together the meal, flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. set aside

blend together both sugars and oil. slowly pour in milk as you are stirring and add the almond extract at the last second

make a well in the dry mixture and pour in the liquid mixing until just combined

dough will be stiff. using a spoon or your hands (best method) roll cookies into 1-2 inch in diameter disks. flatten slighly

bake for 10 minutes and 10 minutes only!! cookies will be very soft and you will tempted to bake them longer. trust- they will get firm on the baking sheet, or on the cooling rack and you will be very glad you took them out when you did because the fudgy texture is absolute perfection.

*this would be very ambitious for you, no? some of you probably won't even read this far, giving up at the almond milk part of the blog. if you are not convinced to make nut milk and meal, i guess (sigh) you could lightly blend up some cooking oats in place of the almond meal. however, that would make them oatmeal cookies instead of almond cookies....this is my desperate attempt to make the recipe usable for all.