Dina’s Delightful Cookies
These delicious cookies, chock full of coconut, walnuts and raisins are the product of our very recent visit to my parents.
Today the boys and I returned home to Colorado from visiting them in California. We went to have some family bonding time and distract them from a health issue one of them has been dealing with over the past year.
While there, we were able to see my sister, Dina and hang out with her. Of course, I wanted to know what she's been cooking lately. Among many other things, she's been making a version of my chocolate chip cookies sans chocolate, adding coconut, walnuts and raisins.
After making dinner and doing a few loads of laundry, I eagerly popped these in the oven. They were every bit as good as she said they would be.
¼ cup grapeseed oil
¼ cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups blanched almond flour
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
¼ cup raisins
- In a large bowl, combine oil, agave and vanilla
- In a medium bowl, combine almond flour salt, baking soda, walnuts, coconut and raisins
- Stir dry ingredients into wet, mixing thoroughly
- Form dough into 1-inch balls and flatten onto a parchment paper
lined baking sheet
- Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown around the edges
- Cool and serve
The dough for these cookies tends to be a little crumbly so you'll need to use some extra pressure when forming it into balls. In terms of other information regarding this recipe, I toasted the chopped walnuts, though not the shredded coconut. No reason really, other than instinct. I cook quite a lot by instinct so it's kinda funny to me when people ask why I do things a certain way. Often there is no conscious reason.
Dina uses these as a breakfast cookie. While I myself don't do well eating sweets for breakfast, many of you might find these a tempting and delicious way to start your day. I'll be saving mine for dessert. Either way, thanks Dina, and yum!
More cookies and desserts you might enjoy:
Yipppppy, yum.
There is coconut in these--- must. bake. now.
The worst part about coming back from a trip is the laundry!!!
Yum! I have a question I've been meaning to ask you. I'm not gluten-free, but I love all your recipes. Just wondering what a good substitute for grapeseed oil would be and why you use it as your choice of oil? Thanks!
Oh, another question as I'm really hankering to make these. Would coconut oil be a good substitute for the grapeseed oil? And what about coconut flour instead of the almond flour? Just wondering as those are the things I have right now and it would be great to make these, but I don't know if that would be coconut overkill. Just wondering what you think. Thanks!
Katrina,
Thanks for your comment. Please see my faq's on why I use grapeseed oil and flour substitutions.
Elana
YUM! I will bake these for breakfast-only I will most likely add chocolate. It's a lovely addiction. Glad you're home safe and sound.
So glad you had a good family visit and I'm really happy you came back with this recipe from your sister. Hubby will like it for the raisins. I like it for everything else. ;-)
Shirley
"Although my husband encouraged me to launch this site seven years and 300 recipes ago, it took a while for me to catch up with his techno-ideas. Finally, here it is, elana's pantry, a place where I can share recipes, and various ideas for healthy homemaking."
I'm glad u did and glad i just discovered it. :-)
I live in Crimea, and need simple, healthy recipes. Can't buy all your ingredients, but can
usually adapt.
Best of luck!
Yummy, and yes, I'd love to have these for breakfast!
All of your pictures scream... Eat me! When I bake, I am careful to pick the most tempting, scrumtious looking piece of creation and then enjoy every last morsel of that specially chosen indulgence. It's kind of like chosing, "Now which cookie deserves the front page photo?" My husband is always like, "Just grab one"... No, No, No, I make my selection carefully :) Lucky person whoever gets to gobble up your "models"!!
Such a talented family. Get-togethers must be great. I'm really loving your recipes. They don't have a lot of ingredients for me to measure and they make a batch just the right size so I'm not stuffing my face with too much. Thank you for sharing your talents with us.
Oh, yum! I cannot wait to try these!
Great looking recipe, thanks for sharing. I especially love the coconut!
jen
http://www.bodaweightloss.com/blog
these sound great! do you use dried coconut or fresh? does it even matter?
This was my first time trying agave in a recipe and I couldn't be more happy. They were absolutely delicious! The only thing I changed was I used a tsp of cinnamon spice mix that had (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, orange peel, cloves and ginger) and I didn't have any parchment so I used a muffin tin liner which made for perfectly shaped cookies.
Dear Elana,
I made these over the weekend -- I didn't toast the walnuts because I was being lazy -- but I added 1/2 cup of chocolate chips -- you can never have enough chocolate -- they came out so very yummy. Thanks again Elana for a wonderful recipe!!
Theresa Watson
Merritt Island, FL
Great comments, folks!
Here is a summary of some highlights:
1) Several people added chocolate to these which I think would be lovely.
2) Jenn added a cinnamon spice mix --Yum.
Enjoy the cookies,
Elana
I just made an improvised version of these cookies. I only had 3/4 cup of almond flour, so I used 3/4 cup oats as well. Instead of raisins I used the cranberries I had on hand. Delicious!! It was hard to not eat all of the cookie dough...
These were awesome ... I added an egg to see what it would do and they turned out amazing! - thanks again erin
I added cinnamon to these and pressed them into an 8x8 pan to make bars! I am anxiously awaiting the completion of the baking process!! The batter tasted amazing though!
These were yummy. I added an egg and used liquid stevia instead of agave and they turned out beautifully. A perfect breakfast cookie!
NEW favorite cookie recipe! I added orange zest. Thanks for a winner of a recipe!
Honestly, I have made these several times with a few changes and these are our new favorite cookies! Here are my changes: cut the agave in half, used sweetened coconut, only had currents on hand instead of raisins, added hand full of dark chocolate chips. I froze whatever we didn't eat the first day (doubled the recipe). Honestly, we could have eaten them all but held our ground. So I am curious to try these with stevia next time.
One question: Do you know how many calories are in each cookie? My husband wanted to eat the entire bag but figured they were loaded in calories and sugar!
Was looking for a hearty cookie and came across these, DELICIOUS! I had to sub honey for agave and it worked out fine, will make over and over. Thank you for sharing all of your wonderful creations!!