Cookies for Breakfast

I really love sweet things. Cookies, Cake, Doughnuts, you name it and I love it. So it makes perfect sense that I found a way to make cookies for breakfast. When I first came across this idea for breakfast cookies, my health conscious husband Adam gave me major side eye, but he has since come around to love them as much as me because they are very nutritious.

The secret to this dish is almond flour, which instead of the regular white flour found in normal cookies, has lots of protein and healthy fat. There’s also no butter in these cookies and only a small amount of agave syrup used as a sweetener.

I first made these cookies because Adam ordered some natural almond milk from this cute almond farmer guy at our local farmers market. I love living near a farmer’s market! When the cute almond guy delivered our almond milk the next day he also dropped off some free almond meal. Tons of the stuff. I quickly began searching for ways to use the almond meal. It turns out that almond meal is similar to almond flour and it got me wondering if I could bake with it. And voila! Breakfast cookies.

These are a great item to make to satisfy your endless sweet tooth if you’re like me and you also don’t want to feel super guilty later. I’ve made these for Adam to take with him on a work trip since they are really satiating and now he requests them when he travels.

Some people find baking from scratch intimidating. It’s my experience that it usually follows the same pattern: Measure out some dry things and combine them. Measure out some wet ingredients and combine them. Then combine the dry ingredients and wet ingredients. This recipe follows that pattern. Once you get started you’ll see it’s not hard at all.

You can add anything you want to your cookie dough to personalize it. I like dried apricots, craisins, and chocolate chips. But you could add butterscotch chips, dried pineapple, chopped nuts, chopped pretzel pieces, or whatever else you can think of. Just think like a junk food vegetarian and make it your own.

I have found that once you have created a log of dough it makes the next step easier if you put the log in the freezer for a little bit to harden up before you start cutting.

Some cookies you bake will spread out a lot on the pan when you put them in the oven. The cookies in this recipe don’t spread like that so you can put more on the pan and closer together. (Yay less dishes!)

Take your cookies off the pans when done and let them cool on a rack.

Pack these cookies up in an airtight container if you can keep your friends and family (or yourself) from eating them all. And call your mom and tell her you’re eating cookies for breakfast!

Cookies for Breakfast, The Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup coconut oil melted (scoop into a bowl then microwave)

1/4 cup agave syrup

1 large egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups chopped dried fruit, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pretzel pieces, anything decadent and tasty

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add the wet ingredients and stir together with a spoon.

Scoop the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Form the dough into a log and wrap it up with the paper or plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour. Then slice the cookies from the log about 1/4 inch thick and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper underneath.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they start to brown around the edges.

Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Store in an airtight container. You can also freeze excess cookies in a zippered freezer bag.