vanilla Archives - Pamela Salzman

Salted Flourless Chocolate Chunk Cookies Recipe

I swore I wouldn’t post this recipe, but I gave in to persistent begging. I didn’t know the world needed another chocolate chip cookie recipe! But apparently many people could not live without this one. I will admit, these are quite, quite delicious and you can’t always say that about a grain-free, flourless cookie.

The reason I was reluctant to post this is because it is a very finicky recipe. I probably made these cookies 20-24 times and I had a couple of fails. Not inedible fails, but they didn’t look like the pictures you see here. Again, these are totally delicious in every way. Big chunks of melty dark chocolate and crispy flakes of sea salt are always a win in my book. The fact that these are also grain-free/flourless is just an added bonus, especially for all my GF and Paleo students, who seem to be growing in numbers. Although that might just be the post-holiday detox trend. I digress.

The two ingredients that affect the outcome of these cookies are the almond butter and the sugar. You cannot use a runny almond butter or one that is very oily. Once during a class, I had a new jar of room temperature Maranatha almond butter which I may not have stirred properly to incorporate the oil on top. I had oil dripping down my arms while I was rolling out the dough. I knew the cookies were going to be a disaster and they kind of were — very flat, oily and crumbly at the edges. Thankfully, this batter is a snap to make, so I just made another batch quickly with almond butter I had in the fridge. The next round was perfect.

These cookies are slightly softer than traditional chocolate chip cookies, unless you use brown sugar and then they do get a little crispy around the edges. The flavor is spot-on with just the right amount of sweetness. After 2 days, I store them in the fridge. They also freeze well.

Instead of giving you a blow-by-blow of all cookie escapades, let me summarize here:

use cold, refrigerated almond butter;
thicker almond butter is better than thinner;
if your nut butter is thinner, you can add 1 1/2 Tablespoons coconut flour to the batter;
you can make these with sunflower butter, but there will be a reaction between the sunflower butter and the baking soda which will tint the cookies green;
mix by hand (with a wooden spoon) not a mixer;
brown sugar, although a refined and not Pamela-approved sweetener, gave the best results — slightly crispy and chewy;
muscovado sugar was the second best and coconut sugar came in third — see the images in the post to compare;
do not use maple syrup, honey or another liquid sweetener;
you must allow the cookies to cool completely on the pan, not a cooling rack;
I always make 12 cookies, but you can make fewer and just make them bigger.

Ok, that’s all she wrote. Hit me with your questions and let me know if you make them!

brown sugar used here — brown sugar (and peppermint bark instead of chocolate chunks)

Salted Flourless Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Pamela

4.80 from 5 votes

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Servings cookies

Ingredients

1 cup unsweetened unsalted almond butter (raw or roasted, make sure it is well-blended)*
½ cup coconut sugar brown sugar or muscovado sugar
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Maldon salt divided
¾ cup chopped dark chocolate about 4 ounces or semi-sweet chocolate chips
optional add-ins: 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder to make chocolate cookies or ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, mix almond butter and sugar until well combined.
Stir in baking soda, egg, vanilla and ½ teaspoon flaky salt until well combined.
Stir in chocolate.
Scoop a heaping tablespoon of dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the cookies with remaining ½ teaspoon salt.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool completely on baking sheet before transferring to a rack. To keep longer than one or two days, store in the refrigerator.

Notes

*If your almond butter is thin and runny or very oily, add 1 ½ Tablespoons of coconut flour to the batter.
Please read the suggestions outlined in the post.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

DIY Vanilla Extract and a Gifting Idea

Is it too early to start thinking about the Christmas holidays. Absolutely. Do I do any of my holiday gift buying before Labor Day? Under no circumstances. I might have my meal plan figured out for the week, but I’m the mom on Halloween morning looking for electrical tape to try and make a Bat Man costume.

But, I do have a great idea that you can do now for holiday gifts or holiday baking — DIY vanilla extract! Why am I talking about this now after I just said I don’t plan for the holidays this far in advance? Because although vanilla extract takes minutes to make, it requires about 6 weeks to sit and brew. Still a little early to think about this, but lots of holidays are coming up and I will not be thinking about making vanilla extract in November. #thanksgivingtrumpsall

My assistant Lauren gave me a bottle of homemade vanilla extract last year for Christmas and I was absolutely delighted to receive it. First of all, I just love homemade gifts, especially homemade food gifts! And vanilla is something I use a lot of, so I was really grateful to be given something so good AND useful. I love the essence of vanilla in baked goods and desserts. In fact, I think it’s one of those ingredients that has a natural sweetness to it without actually containing a sweetener. Just an FYI, even if you don’t make your own vanilla extract, do read the ingredient label on commercially-prepared ones. Somehow manufacturers are allowed to use the word “pure” on the label while adding things like corn syrup solids. So troubling.

Recently, I had Lauren provide me a little tutorial on making vanilla extract and give me all her sources for labeling and making these look so cute. Here’s what you’ll need:

Grade B Vanilla Beans: Grade B beans are best for extract as they are too dry for cooking, but still are high quality in taste and flavor. We used 3/4 of a pound of these Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans. Bourbon, by the way, refers to the island of Bourbon in Madagascar, not the alcohol. Bourbon vanilla is the most flavorful of all the vanillas and what I use for all my baking.

Vodka: Vodka used because it has no flavor, as opposed to other other alcohols. You don’t need to buy the best vodka to make vanilla extract. Any mid-level 80-proof vodka will do. Figure on spending about $15-20 for a 1.75 liter bottle. We used 2 bottles.

Large glass jar: This is to brew the extract. We used this gallon kombucha jar which was $10 on amazon.

For gifting, there are obviously hundreds of options, but here is what we used in the pictures on this post:

Glass bottles: I like the idea of gifting 4 ounce bottles since that is a standard size for vanilla extract. These are the bottles we used which as you can see are dark glass. Clear glass is fine for brewing, but for long term storage, dark glass is better since light is no friend to extracts. In general, specialtybottles.com is a great source for lots of different bottles.

hoemmade vanilla extract perfect for holiday gifts | pamela salzman

Labels: I love the labels Lauren used. It makes the gift more personal and printable labels are especially nice if you don’t have nice handwriting. These Avery kraft square labels were found on amazon.

String: Not necessary, but I use this baker’s string for many gifts from my kitchen. I think it’s adorable. Red is perfect for the holiday, but there are lots of pretty colors available.

Here’s what you do:

1-2 months before you want vanilla extract, prepare the batch. I like the ratio of 4 whole vanilla beans to 8 ounces of vodka.

Split the vanilla beans lengthwise and place them in the large bottle. Cover the beans completely with vodka. Secure the lid on the bottle and swirl it around a bit. Store at room temperature for 4-6 weeks, the longer the better. It will darken as time passes. The batch above has been sitting for 6 weeks.

When you transfer the extract to smaller bottles for gifting, add the beans to the bottles as well. As you use the extract, just keep adding a little vodka to replace what you took out. Vanilla extract lasts indefinitely. You can also take vanilla beans from which you scraped the seeds and add them to vanilla extract in the works.

Store finished extract in the pantry (not the refrigerator) away from light and heat.

Have any of you made other extracts? I think I have the extract-making bug!

vanilla

Chocolate-chia-raspberry popsicles recipe

This is the last hurrah before school starts and then the recipes start getting more serious. Throughout the summer, I’ve assembling more than cooking, presenting meals at irregular hours, winging it a bit. But with the first day of school looming, I know I have to get my act together and have a plan for three well-balanced meals a day. But until then, we’ll keep eating these popsicles for breakfast or to cool off in the afternoon.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: my weakness (beside guacamole and chips) is ice cream. I hardly ever eat it anymore, even the clean recipes I have on my site for dairy-free, refined sugar-free cashew ice cream. Once I start, it’s hard for me to stop, so I try to stay away from ice cream altogther. But I still crave it, especially ice cream with chunks of something tucked inside like chocolate chips, nuggets of banana, a swirl of peanut butter or a salty almond. Now look what I’ve done. I’ve gotten myself all worked up.

A homemade popsicle is my answer to an ice cream craving. It’s sweet, cold and creamy. It takes a little longer to eat. It’s a reasonable serving size and therefore an acceptable calorie count. And I can make it the way I want. My kids and I have been devouring these chocolate chia pudding popsicles. I got the idea from seeing Martha Stewart on The Today Show. She took a small container of plain yogurt and swirled some fruit into it and then stuck a popsicle stick into it and froze it. I thought that was a clever breakfast to-go for the warmer first days of school. We eat a lot of chia pudding for breakfast and snacks. My son prefers the chocolate version which I make with raw cacao powder and the next day we’ll add in fresh fruit or shredded coconut and the like. Chia seeds are really high in protein, fiber and good fats, so they make a great breakfast or substantial snack. So I took some leftover chocolate chia pudding, stirred some fresh raspberries into it and poured it into popsicle molds. Voila! Delicious and a truly healthful treat!

I think these are like a chocolate popsicle with texture. I kept the sweetness pretty low, but if you want this to feel more like a dessert, it would be super easy to make it sweeter. Just add a little honey or maple syrup to the pudding before freezing and you’ve done it. Or use more dates if that’s how you’d like to go. I love the combo of chocolate and raspberries, but you can keep these straight chocolate or add coconut or chopped cherries or strawberries or even raw cacao nibs if you’re a hardcore superfood junkie!

One message I am always trying to get through to my students is that so many recipes are just formulas that you can tweak into dozens of other recipes. Chia pudding is one of those. Once you know the basic ratio of chia seeds to liquid to sweetener, you can change it to any number of flavor combinations, like strawberry-basil, blueberry-almond or mango-coconut. You can blend fruit into the almond milk if you don’t want chunks. Or just stir pieces into the pudding if you want the texture. Or mini chocolate chips would be nice. And then there’s peaches and raspberries. Or lemon. Or banana. I can do this all day. Savor these popsicles in case they’re you’re last ones until next summer!