Salted Caramel Almond Butter Cookies {Gluten-Free}

So, we started this really fun, 10-week Virtual Holiday Cookie Swap four weeks ago called #CookieSwappinGood, and we haven’t yet shared a cookie recipe of our own! Embarrassing, to say the least. We’ve been learning so much from the recipes and techniques that our foodie friends have been sharing–we now have 35 cookie recipes in our collection (more to come until Week 10)! Anyway, we decided to modify one of the peanut butter cookie recipes to create our own Salted Caramel Almond Butter Cookies (oh, and they’re gluten-free)! Keep reading to see how we made them!

When we saw Scrappy Geek’s 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookie recipe, we wondered if almond butter would make for a good substitute–especially after we found this locally-produced Maple Caramel Almond Butter during one our trips to North Georgia! Oh, and we have a child who’s allergic to peanut butter and wheat flour!

We really like the flavor of this particular almond butter by NaturAlmond, and it’s important to note that this one has more oil than the no-stir versions. It also comes with chunky bits of almond in it.

In hindsight, we probably should have set the extra oil aside before adding the almond butter into the mixing bowl (see how the oil has separated from the almond butter in the top left photo?)…

Instead, we decided to stir it in, as we would normally do when enjoying almond butter.

Though not a big deal, we made some adjustments by removing the cookies from the oven at the 9th minute (to get rid of the excess oil) and transferred them to another cookie sheet before letting them bake for another 3 minutes.

It was well worth the effort! In the end, we had the yummiest, chewiest Salted Caramel Almond Butter Cookies which had a chewiness similar to coconut macaroons!

Recipe: Salted Caramel Almond Butter Cookies {Gluten-Free}

Servings:       Approx. 20 cookies
Prep Time:   5 – 10 minutes
Bake Time:  12 minutes
Total Time:  22 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 oz (1 cup) NaturAlmond Maple Caramel Almond Butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup fair trade organic sugar
• 1/2 cup fair trade organic brown sugar
• Himalayan sea salt, freshly ground (for sprinkling after baking)

Directions

Step 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees then combine ingredients in an electric mixing bowl, starting with the egg

Note: I suppose it really doesn’t matter which ingredient goes in first, but my crazy mind likes to trick me into thinking that doing it in this order would lessen the need to scrape the bottom.

Step 2.  Add in the almond butter, followed by the sugar (both types)

Step 3.  Using an electric mixer, mix all ingredients (except for the Himalayan sea salt) until thoroughly combined

Step 4.  Roll the batter into 1 1/2″ balls then place them on a cookie sheet (we lined the cookie sheet with unbleached parchment paper)

Step 5.  Press them down with a fork in a criss-cross fashion (unlike their peanut butter cookie counterpart, these patterns won’t beautifully show after baking)

Step 6.  Bake for 12 minutes, let cool, sprinkle with Himalayan sea salt, then serve

Note: Depending on the oil content that comes with your almond butter of choice, we suggest checking the cookies after they have been baking for 9 minutes. We decided to remove our cookies from the oven after 9 minutes to get rid of the excess oil, then we placed them back on a newly-lined cookie sheet and baked them for an additional 3 minutes.

If you don’t really like the added salt, you can skip that step and serve without! The cookies turned out pretty good either way–plus, they’re gluten-free!

We can’t wait to make more cookies using other nut butters and added ingredients (perhaps organic raw cacao powder)!

We’d love for you to visit our #CookieSwappinGood 2016 page to check out all the delicious cookie recipes shared by talented foodies!

Enjoy!

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