Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten-free, if you wanna)

I first heard about these cookies on How Sweet It Is, but they're actually from Eat Live Run. When I first looked at the recipe, I was SHOCKED. I had almost everything on that list. Except regular sugar. I know it's weird, but I have zero sugar in my house. Don't judge me.

While looking at stuff to register I told LeGreg, "Well, we obviously have to register for a KitchenAid mixer. Every house needs one of those." To which he appropriately responded, "why do you need one of those? You never even bake!". What a dick, right?

So, I saw this recipe and was all "WATCH ME BAKE! I TOTALLY NEED THAT MIXER BECAUSE I BAKE SO MUCH!"

The fact that this recipe is so easy that you can use a spoon to mix it and I didn't even have to use my hand mixer is NOT THE POINT, PEOPLE.

I'm a baker, now.

That's the point.

Duh.

(Warning: this makes ELEVENTY MILLION cookies)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut oil, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

3 cups gluten-free oats (or old fashioned) (I used old fashioned. Or whatever the oatmeal is in my cupboard)

1 10-oz bag dark chocolate chips

1 cup almond butter

2 tbsp ground flax mixed with 6 tbsp warm water

2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the coconut oil, almond butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until well blended. Add vanilla extract and ground flax + water water mixture. Keep beating until everything is combined.

In another bowl, mix together the oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips. Mix until just combined—be careful not to overmix!

Roll small balls of dough and place three inches apart on a silpat or parchment paper-lined sheet tray. Do not flatten dough balls. Bake for 10-12 minutes until puffy. Let cool for 5 minutes on sheet tray before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

First off, I definitely completely forgot the vanilla, and I'm not sure it was missed. Not that I have anything to compare this to, but whatever.

Second off, almond butter is like semi-liquid gold. A cup of it is A LOT. I might have cried a little as I put the almost empty jar that I had just opened that morning back into the fridge. 

They WAY flattened out while they baked, so I used pretty tiny balls of dough. They look crunchy, but they're actually pretty chewy. AND DELICIOUS. 

But a little oily. Between the coconut oil and the almond butter, which is pretty oily itself, they're just a little....oily. I might try to remedy that next time, but I have no idea how yet. 

BUT I'M TOTALLY A BAKER NOW.  So I'm sure I'll expertly figure it out. 

Things REAL bakers do? Forget to buy chocolate chips and use a dark chocolate bar that they find in the back of the freezer (because ugh, you can't binge eat dark chocolate, so why bother?) and chop it up to MAKE chocolate chips. 

Baker. 

Boom.