A blog about the Primal Blueprint diet and lifestyle
Over the 4th of July weekend I decided to mess around with some primal cookie making. The last thing I need are loads of cookies hanging around the house but I had lots of family in town who politely ate the products of my experiments. I’ve mentioned before that baking is not my forte mainly because I don’t measure carefully and I get impatient with the process. There’s something about primal baking, though, that brings the fun and creativity back into baking for me. Also, I eat so few baked goods now that no matter how it turns out it will still be a treat.
I had a great time putting these cookies together. I did not include the kids but if you are so inclined, this would make for a fun family sort of activity. Use the master recipe on this page and your imagination. You can make the cookies as primal as you want.
All in all I made 4 batches of 12 cookies. I started off by portioning out the almond flour, baking soda, and salt in 4 separate bowls. Then I played around with variations on the wet ingredients. Finally, I perused the pantry for various cookie add-ins. Chocolate chips are always a big hit, but I also made a few batches with more healthy options like banana, nuts, and coconut.
Following is the master recipe I used in my experiment. I noted that the cookies made with butter came out firmer than the ones made with coconut oil, which tended to remain fairly soft even after cooling (maybe it was the warm weather…. If you decide to use this recipe to come up with your own primal cookie concoction, let me know how it turns out.
Yield: 12 cookies
Dry ingredients:
Wet ingredients:
Other Stuff:
(These are just ideas, I recommend digging around in your pantry and experimenting with additional ingredients, too.
*Note: if you add in additional wet ingredients to the mix, you may have to balance out the moisture with an additional cup or so of the almond flour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a large-ish bowl, set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Fold in any additional ingredients you haven’t already added to the wet or dry mixtures. Spoon dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until cookies are set and slightly toasty.
Stay tuned for another post on the recipes I came up with for a pretty darn good chocolate chip cookie and some other variations.
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i really love your blog! just going primal myself, my blog is also on it’s way to the caveman life.
these cookies look beautiful!!! please keep it up!
I just made your primal cookies using coconut butter, almond butter, egg, vanilla, hazelnut flour, soda, salt, and chocolate chips. I also baked a few toll house cookies for the husband. My 3 year old asked for one of the “bumpy cookies” (the primal cookies). After eating it she asked for another one. There was NO mention of her even wanting a one of the toll house ones. If that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does. Awesome recipes. Thanks!
I love this cookie recipe–I’ve tried it a couple different ways, but my favorite is with slivered almonds, almond extract, cinnamon and cardamom. I just blogged my variation, with credit to you, of course!
I just made these using olive oil and mooshed soaked dates as the sweetener. First batch I added ginger and allspice to get a gingernut-type… and they were pretty good but not quite sweet enough. Also very soft. Second batch I kinda doubled (though not the oil) and had half dessicated coconut. Also added cocoa powder and dried cranberries. Tasted fab – but I burnt them 🙁 They seemed to have a better chewy texture than the only-almond ones. Maybe my oven sucks!
I was led here from MDA and I was looking for a Primal cookie recipe that I could swap out almond meal and almond butter for. I used this recipe to make walnut-apple cookies. I used an extra 1/4 c of walnut meal to balance the grated 1/2 apple I had left over from his Curried Egg salad recipe I made earlier today. I left them in for a while and some of the edges were a bit overdone but those cookies held better and I actually liked the taste. I also added 1 tsp of baking powder. It didn’t make them “rise” but they did expand quite a bit. Perhaps that’s what the baking soda was for (I’m not a natural baker so I don’t know). I think next time I’ll also add some cinnamon to the apples. Thanks for posting this recipe!
I feel the need to add that overnight the more pliable cookies didn’t hold well. Perhaps it was because I stored them quickly in a container so I could go to bed (don’t know about the more firm ones). I point this out to 1-solicit any advice other than using butter instead of oil to get them to stick and 2- share that I found the mix made a great “oatmeal” taste and texture. I think I’m going to throw all these ingredients in a baking bowl one morning to get that nice warm bowl of “oatmeal” that I miss having!
These cookies turned out great. I used honey as the sweetener and added cocoa powder to the dry ingredients and some 70% dark chocolate and chopped walnuts to the dough. It was really really good. Highly recommended!
Love the idea of having a master recipe to build off of! Makes paleo easier and a bit more fun if that’s even possible ;). I actually used a food processor for the recipe, just added the dry ingredients first then wet ingredients. I used only 2 T coconut oil (melted) and 2 T of honey. Added 1/2 cup coconut flakes and 1 t cinnamon to the dry ingredients, then 1/2 cup egg whites and a tiny bit of coconut milk just to even out wet ingredients. Lastly, I stirred in 1/4 cup chopped pecans and 1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks.
YUM!