Nut Butter Chia Cookies

I had a bag of chia seeds from Trader Joe's but really struggled with how I should eat them. I used to stick them in almond milk overnight, where they would get bloated and gelatinous.  I love boba balls so I can hang, but when you got a million of those things soaking up 9-12 times its weight in almond milk...it's a little overwhelming.

So when I found this book Chia: The Complete Guide to the Ultimate Superfood which includes all these easy recipes, I was pretty jazzed! (I've never used "jazzed" before in my life; my husband says it all the time.)

My FIRST crack at making some delicious chia treats was the Nut Butter Chia Cookies. They are sweet, yet packed with protein and fiber. I'm a very inexperienced baker (you'll see), but they came out freaking fantastic! So YOU can make them, too.



Ingredients:

1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup natural cane sugar or regular granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted cashew butter (can also use almond butter) *I bought organic cashew butter. It was over $12! I read the price wrong on the shelf. So I nearly fainted. BUT you can get almond butter at Trader Joe's for $6.99 in NYC.
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups oat flour (gluten-free!) or whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup ground almond meal *I didn't use this.  Seemed like a lot of trouble to make and couldn't find at the store
3 tablespoons chia seeds
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Instructions pretty much verbatim from the book. Is that plagiarism? I don't know how many creative ways I can write "Add the egg and vanilla."


1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (Right off the bat, I got delayed. I didn't know what the hell parchment paper was...and I had to explore different stores to find it. Apparently, parchment paper > aluminum or wax paper.  PP leads to less brown on the bottom, less crispiness (READ: MORE softness!)

2.  Beat together the coconut oil, sugars, and cashew/almond butter using a stand mixer (or mix by hand until it feels like it's gonna fall off like I did. Watching Netflix helps. Louie CK's poker table discussions about gay sex clubs distracted me from the pain.)

That coconut oil looking suspect.

By the way, make sure your coconut oil is NOT in your fridge and horribly solid so that when you try to scoop it out it is damn near impossible. I had to let it "thaw" on top of the oven.

3.  Add the egg and vanilla, beating until completely blended. (More Louie CK)

4.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond meal, chia seeds, baking soda, and salt.  Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until blended.

 +  =

5.  Using a tablespoon (I did) or a medium-size cookie scoop, drop batter onto lined baking sheets.  I used their advice of pressing down with a glass tumbler to flatten them.

6.  Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.  I kept them in the oven a couple of minutes more because my cookie balls were kind of fat and the insides took a while to bake. Or maybe I WAS supposed to take them out before and I just over baked them.  Oh well. They tasted AWESOME.

7.  Cool for 1 to 2 minutes before removing the cookies from the pans. Or burn your fingers being greedy a-holes like my husband and I did when we snatched them immediately off the pans causing them to crumble. Of course, we didn't care and continued destroying perfectly cute cookies and inhaling their poor shattered bodies.  Don't worry. If you let them cool, the cookies keep better.

I see missing cookies!

I guess the $12 organic cashew butter was worth it.  Thanks, Brad. And author Wayne Coats for the recipe- there are more than 75 recipes to boost your energy! You can get the book here and find out all you need to know about chia seeds!