Chocolate Orange & Almond Cookies

A slight twist on the traditional chocolate and 
nut combo, but a good one. But then, you can’t really go wrong with putting chocolate and nuts together!

The Equipment
Blender
Knife
Fork
Cling Film
Chopping board
Large Mixing Bowl
Greaseproof paper
Baking tray(s)
Weighing scales

The Ingredients
125g Butter (if you’re not lactose intolerant use organic butter, otherwise soya or olive spread can be used)
150g Xylitol
1 Egg
1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
1/4 teaspoon Gluten Free Baking Powder
200g Gluten Free Flour
50g Blanched Almonds50g Xylitol Orange Chocolate
(If you don't need to use sugar-free chocolate, use organic fair-trade dark chocolate).


The Method
First of all break the chocolate up into pieces and place in the blender with the almonds. Blend this for about 30 seconds or until the chocolate and the almond have been broken down into small chunks, but you don’t want them to be completely pulverized and like powder.

This is a noise process! But its also much quicker and less effort than chopping them up by hand. Once you have a small chunky mix of choc-nut goodness, transfer it to your large mixing bowl.

Then add butter and Xylitol to the blender and mix together.

Add the egg and vanilla extract to the mix and blend some more.

Add the flour, salt and baking powder to the mix, keep blending!... until well mixed.

Move the blended mixture into the large bowl with the chocolate-nut chunks and stir these together by hand until all ingredients are well incorporated and evenly spread throughout the mixture.

Cover your chopping board with a layer of cling film and then the mixture onto the cling film and shape into a roll as much as you can.

Wrap the dough in the cling film so you have yourself are large cookie dough sausage :) Make sure the dough is entirely covered in cling film.

Place the cookie sausage into the freezer.

After an 1-1.5 hours, take the cookie sausage out of the freezer and give it a bit of a roll on the chopping board, it will be firm now and easier to shape.

Put back in the freezer for another 30 minutes - 1 hour.

At this point pre-heat the oven to 170oC and put the greaseproof paper on the baking tray(s).

Remove the cookie sausage from the freezer and unwrap the cling film from the dough, place on the chopping board.

Cut the dough into discs and place on the baking trays, give them a bit of space as they will spread.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Once out of the oven, peel them off the greaseproof paper and on to a cooling rack.

Once they are cool they are soft and chewy, but they are actually better the day after you have baked them. They become crunchy and somehow this makes them taste better! If you want them chunky immediately, then leave them in the oven for a little longer.


Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.