Deconstructed Almond Joy Cookies

I made these cookies for a staff meeting that I'll be attending tonight with the entire community center staff, which is why this recipe is HUGE. You can easily half it, but I find cookies never last that long around my friends, and there is no such thing as too many cookies.

Anyway, this is THE BEST fluffy gluten free cookie that I have made. Not the best flavoring (that would be my browned butter cookie, recipe later) But these are so fluffy for gluten free, and trust me that is a great feat. They are crispy around the edges too which in my opinion is the perfect compliment to cookie fluff :) I don't really ever follow any other recipes well because I'd rather create my own thing, which is what happened with these cookies. I have seen TONS of almond joy cookie recipes yet none that are quite like this. The other great thing about this recipe (and really any recipe for that matter if you're adventurous like me) is there is so much room for variation. One thought, since there is maple syrup acting as a sweetener, maybe replace the coconut with dried or fresh apples, replace the almonds with walnuts, add a little cinnamon and have a cinnamon maple apple pie cookie! Maybe I'll try that for the next staff meeting.

Oh I almost forgot to mention. NO REFINED SUGAR. When I cook with refined sugar, I use only organic and naturally made cane sugar, or raw demerara. I mostly try to avoid it all together or use unrefined and minimally processed sweeteners like honey and maple syrup. Another great sweetener is fruit such as bananas, though I more prefer that for bread or muffins. I HATE artificial or low calorie sweeteners. I am currently torn on the sweetener Xylitol, I'd love to hear opinions on that.

Ingredients
Makes 60+ cookies.

1 cup of butter, melted but cooled
1 cup coconut oil, melted but cooled
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup honey
4 eggs
4 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups almond meal/flour (I make my own)
2 cups brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups chocolate drops
2 cups dark chocolate chunks
2 cups unsweetened flaked coconut
2 cups chopped almonds, (you can toast these ahead of time, but I found that they toast quite well while the whole cookie is baking.

Preheat oven to 350°

Combine the flours baking soda and salt in a large bowl and stir. Set this aside. almond flour is my favorite to use because it is one of the most nutritious flours. The other two you can trade out for whatever gluten free flour you like. Any combination will work. You will also notice there is no xantham gum. It really isn't needed in cookies, and I nix it whenever I can.

In your stand mixer add your melted butter and coconut oil and give a quick spin. Then add the yogurt, maple syrup and honey, mix on  For the recipe I said 1 cup on each of those, But I didn't fill my cup the whole way, maybe closer to 3/4 cup, which wont hurt the recipe at all.

Add the 4 eggs one by one until they are combined. Then add vanilla. At this stage your butter/sweetener mixture will be almost completely liquid, mine had a few chunks of butter which is perfectly fine. You want to scrape your bowl at this point so that all of the heavier ingredients are being mixed. My bowl has a bubble at the bottom and it is very easy for the mixer to neglect that area.

Slowly add the flour mixture while the stand mixer is on. I keep mine on low/medium. My stand mixer is 5Q, and this recipe will fill it almost up to the top of the paddle, so make sure it is nice and slow so that it can adequately mix all the flour in. Because it is so full, I always like to hand mix with a spatula a bit after all the flour is in.

Add the coconut and stir. You can add all of it at the same time, its easy.

Add the almonds and stir. Then add the chocolate, I used about 3 1/2 cups because my bag of chunks was slightly short.

*At this point you might be getting worried because your cookie dough is not firm and you cant mold it into a ball like you're probably used to. Don't worry. This is EXACTLY how the dough should be. Not runny wet, it should still be able to hold a blob when you drop it on the cookie sheet, but it is quite wet comparatively (this extra wetness is what makes the cookie fluffy, its really important for gluten free things to have added moisture)*

You can use a cookie scoop or your hands to blob the cookie dough onto your cookie sheet. I used my hands. These cookies do actually spread out on their own so leave a bit of space.

Pop in the over for around 12 minutes. I'm really horrible about timing so I recommend going by color. That's the more important thing anyway. These cookies will turn a crispy brown color all over when they are ready. You can also take them right off the pan and onto a cooking rack, just be careful because the fluffiness makes them gentle.

Enjoy :)

Blackberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I’ve used this frosting twice in the past week. Once for my snickerdoodle cupcakes, and this morning on some sugar cookies. EVERYONE raved about how delicious this frosting is, so I think its worthy of sharing :)

Note: This is a large batch, it makes enough for cupcakes and cookies.

Ingredients:

2 8-oz packages of cold Neufchatel cheese

(regular cream cheese is fine, I just happen to like this cheese the best)

3 cups powdered sugar

3 cups tapioca flour

1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

About ½ cup of blackberry juice/puree, fresh.

Directions:

1. Place both packages of cream cheese in stand mixer (or whatever you got) and all three cups of sugar. Slowly blend until it begins to get creamy.

2. Add vanilla extract while blending.

3. Up the speed a little, slowly add in the tapioca flour.

4. Make sure to scrape the bowl at this point, the tapioca flour can and will make it a thicker sticky consistency. You want to also whip it on medium speed after scraping the bowl, for about a minute or so.

Prepare the black berries:

I used frozen ones that I melted in the microwave which works perfect for this because it produces a lot of ‘juice’ You can also use fresh blackberries and roast them (just put them in something similar to a pie tin and cook until juicy in the oven at 350f) But the problem with roasting fresh is that you have to wait for them to cool. The blackberry juice needs to be either slightly cold, or room temperature. Not freezing, Not hot, if either of those occurs it will ruin the cream cheese blend you already have made.

Anyway, I didn’t measure this exactly, I just turned the mixer on and added juice until I liked the color. I melted somewhere around 1/3 to ½ cup of blackberries, but probably only used ¼ cup of juice. Once it turned purple I added just a few full berries and lightly blended so they would stay mostly together.

Another note: I like to make things less sugary if at all possible which is why I used tapioca flour. It’s a gluten free flour, but when used in recipes it tends to add a taste of sweetness, although there is no sugar in it. If you don’t care so much about the sugar, you can replace the 3 cups of tapioca flour with powdered sugar to make it a total of 6 cups.

I will have pictures to come in the future :) enjoy!

Filthy Fifty

This is a cross fit adapted exercise that my boyfriend showed me, and it is amazing :) Lots of variation can be done here. We usually do it together, and go for time. He can do his in around 30 minutes, I take about 35.

What you do is pick ten exercises, and do 50 reps each. Here is five that I just thought up on the spot. Also you don't have to do them in the order written down. We usually start with ones we hate the most, and alternate between leg and arm exercises.

Lunges
Squats
Thrusters
Pull ups (I do jumping, he does regular)
Toes to bar
Push ups
Med ball ab twists
Jumping lunges
Box jumps
Leg lifts.

Now, if you are thinking that you have to get through all fifty reps of each exercise without stopping then you are crazy. Sometimes you end up doing five sets of ten to complete it, other times you have to take short breaks the whole way through. That is okay. You just give it your top effort, and don't be a baby about it :)

5x50 Workout

This is a quick cardio interval exercise that I love to do when I don't feel like doing weights at the gym that day, or if I am more crunched for time than normal.

Each exercise is done for 50 reps, and you do the whole list 5 times through. Pick your own exercises or use mine.

Sumo Squats* with weight (I use a 20, and that is really really hard, my legs are dying after the 5 sets)
Jumping Jacks
Mountain Climbers
Push ups (ugh)
Crunches

*Sumo squats are wide legged squats with your toes facing out rather than straight. Do not do these if you don't have a good understanding of squat form in the first place, trust me. You can also nix the weight if its too hard.