The desserts on Elana's Pantry look amazing but the idea of importing some sort of special blanched almond flour just seemed a little too extreme even for me. So I was grateful when Toby come across blanched almond meal in Brunswick IGA. It wasn't cheap, it cost a little over $11 for 500 grams. I was a little worried though, I didn't want to buy some super expensive almond meal which didn't work in her recipes. Particularly because she says that you need to use certain brands of blanched almond flour since others don't work with her recipes.
I used lindt dark chocolate and cut it into tiny chunks and made her famous cookies.
Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies from Elana's Pantry
2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
(i used regular sea salt)½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup dark chocolate chips 73% cacao
- Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
- Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
- Mix wet ingredients into dry
- Form ½ inch balls and press onto a parchment lined baking sheet
- Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
- Cool and serve
Makes 24 cookies
I put them in the oven for a few minutes more than the recipes asked for but they were still quite soft so I was a little skeptical but after cooling for what seemed like forever they eventually firmed up and had a soft but wonderful texture kind of like mrs field cookies. Although, I made one mistake with this recipe and used dark agave. I thought that dark agave and regular agave were interchangeable in recipes but it turns out that dark agave has quite a strong flavour unlike it's neutral counterpart. So while these cookeis were delicious the dark agave really overpowered the other flavours.
To make up for the strong flavour I made some ice cream sandwiches to take to a friends house. I actually made ice cream to put inside but couldn't find the crucial part of our ice cream maker so had to settle for so good chocolate ice cream inside. I think the chocolate ice cream was a bit too much and I'm not really sure if our friends enjoyed them.
But I have high hopes for the recipe with regular agave and plan to make them properly very soon because the texture is so bloody awesome for a gf baked good and I can tell that they will taste great without the strong agave flavour.
In the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions for dark agave recipes?
I think ive used almond meal before in baking but never blanced almod meal. Ive used the Lindt dark chocolate to make desserts before and I always find it too bitter and overpowering. I love the whittikers dark for anything :)
ReplyDeleteRose
I bought dark agave recently and have wondered if it is the same as regular - I think I have only used it in small quantities so it has been fine but it has reminded me a little of golden syrup so maybe it could be substituted for recipes with that - like anzacs which are not really gf-friendly but that type of bikky. I have seen lots of recipes with nut flours and wondered what the difference in texture is and I have sometimes just used nut meal instead because I feel that chances of finding nut flour are slim - so it is interesting to hear how well your cookies worked with it.
ReplyDeletethey look perfect! Yum
ReplyDeleteThose look great! I can't offer any advice about agave, because we never buy it - I always sub golden syrup, which I am fully aware is definitely not the same thing, but meh.
ReplyDeleteCool owl - is he some kind of candle holder, or mozzie coil burner or something?
I have to say I love the more intense flavour of dark agave, but I've probably also not yet used it in huge enough quantities in something to overpower it. What brand to you use, also? :)
ReplyDeleteof course we enjoyed them!!
ReplyDeleteRose I love whittakers too.
ReplyDeleteJohanna, I'm now wondering if it actually the vanilla essence and not the agave.
Theresa, good guesses it's a citronella candle holder. It's a bit fugly but I like it.
Hannah, I used the loving earth brand.
Annon, I wasn't sure because you only took one :-(
Make this recipe all the time & LOVE them! Enjoy :)
ReplyDelete