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 :)