Chocolate Chip Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies!
The perfect snack for what's left in your cabinet.
The adjustment from baking at home to baking at school was a tough one. Back home I could always guarantee that if I came across a mouthwatering recipe on Pinterest and suddenly caught the baking bug, my mom would already have all the ingredients stocked in our cabinets. I never had to think twice about whether or not we’d have brown sugar or enough eggs for a recipe.
My love of baking has been put on the back burner since I started college. I quickly realized that it’s hard to keep a fully stocked baking pantry and still have the grocery budget to buy other food. I didn’t want to give up baking at school entirely, so I found a solution: instead of seeking out something to bake based off what I’m craving, I let what ingredients are already in my pantry decide what I’m going to make.
Whenever I catch the baking bug I look in my cabinets, assess what ingredients I have and look up a recipe online, minimizing the costs of going to the grocery store. If I’m low on flour I’ll look for flourless or gluten-free recipes, if I don’t have milk I’ll Google vegan/dairy-free treats to make.
Most recently I looked in my pantry and found that I have a lot of almond butter- 3 whole unopened jars worth of it. Being more of a crunchy PB girl myself, it could take me years to use up that supply. Unless, I use it in a recipe! I immediately started searching for recipes that require almond butter (procrastinating all of my homework in the process) and found a recipe for flourless oatmeal almond butter chocolate chip cookies. Try saying that 10 times fast. It uses a full cup of almond butter and they’re so delicious no one would ever guess that they’re gluten-free.
Without further ado, here is my recipe for Chocolate Chip Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies…
Ingredients:
⅔ cup gluten-free rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup almond butter
⅔ cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅔ cup chocolate chips
⅔ cup chopped walnuts
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Combine oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl
- Using a hand mixer, beat almond butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth, about 2 minutes
- Set hand mixer on low and slowly add the oat mixture. Mix until combined, dough will be sticky
- Using a rubber spatula, fold walnuts and chocolate chips into dough
- Scoop 2 teaspoons-worth of dough onto prepared cookie sheets
- Bake for 9-11 minutes
Recipe adapted from Meaningful Eats
Words and photos by Carolyn Barr