JACKPOT bakes healthy almond cookies for Chinese New Year/Valentine’s Day

Hello dear readers!

Happy Friday! Seems like it’s been quite a long week so far and I cannot wait for the weekend to relax, rest and of course indulge in lots of great food. It’s Chinese New Year this weekend so I’m sure all of you will be having family gatherings and lots of CNY dinners. I’m looking forward to my annual family dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve which involves my family and me going to a Chinese restaurant and indulging in lots of food while we are entertained by the lion dancing. As a kid, I used to be so scared of the big lion that I thought would eat me when I gave the lion a red pocket and now I see all these little kids around me thinking the same thing…how much time flies…now all I hear is the constant ringing in my ears from the cymbals and drums…old age I think ;P

I was really itching to bake this week but have been so busy with work that by the time I get home I do not have the energy. I finally got some time last night and figured I wanted to make something that was inspired by Chinese New Year but also Valentine’s Day which is next week. I knew I wanted to bake some healthy cookies using almond meal so I experimented by using almond meal and wholemeal spelt flour as the flours for my cookies. This ended up making the cookie quite soft in the centre but contrasting to the crumbly hard texture on the outside of my cookie. I only sweetened the cookie with pure maple syrup instead of normal sugar which worked well as I don’t usually like my cookies to be quite sweet. And of course to make it a bit more valentine’s day themed I cut some blanched almonds in half and created heart like shapes on top of the cookie. I was so worried that the cookies would turn out dry as they had looked that way once I took them out of the oven but was very happy once I bit into them to see that this wasn’t the case.

Jackpot’s Healthy Almond Cookies

Ingredients:

1.5 Cups of Raw Blanched Natural Almond Meal (you can use normal almond meal if you don’t have this)
1 Cup of Wholemeal Spelt Flour
1 Tsp of Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Cinnamon
1/3 Cup of Pure Maple Syrup (I used a bit less than this but you can adjust the sweetness to your preference)
1/3 Cup of Coconut Oil
1 Organic Free Range Egg
Whole Blanched Almonds (for the tops of the cookies)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and mix well until incorporated. (I used my KitchenAid to mix these ingredients together but you could mix these by hand)
Once the dough forms, take a tablespoon of the batter and roll it into a ball. Once formed into a ball, you can flatten it with your hands to create a flat circular disc.
Line your cookies onto the baking tray about 1cm apart.
Cut your whole blanched almonds into halves and create hearts with the 2 pieces. Press these 2 pieces into each cookie to ensure it sticks into the cookie.
Bake your cookies for around 18-20 minutes. The cookies should brown a bit on the top. Ensure you do not burn the bottom of the cookies by checking the oven regularly.
Take the tray out of the oven and put the cookies on a wire rack to cool.
Once cooled, place the cookies into an airtight container for storage.
Enjoy!

I was really happy with the way these cookies came out. I had made this previously for dad but using granulated sugar in place of the maple syrup for him as I knew he would prefer them to be sweeter but to my surprise he said he found them to be too sweet. This time I knew I wanted to try using a different sweetener and I found that the maple syrup gave it a more neutral taste and that the sweetness was there but not overpowering of the cookie. I am definitely going to make these again when I get the chance. Mr Muscles sneakily ate 4 of my cookies without me knowing once I had stored them in the container. Cookie monster at loose again ;P