Grain-Free Raspberry Cookies

By Meghan Telpner / All Recipes

Are you ready to power it up with Raw Food Power on March 24th!. I know you are. Oooor- how about another group challenge? We are gearing up for spring by lightening our load and trying Veggie living for 5 days. Join the group fun for The Veggie Transition beginning March 27th!

I was really excited to make these. The original recipe is by the delightful queen of clean, green, simple and brilliant recipes, Elana Amsterdam of Elana's Pantry, who I had the pleasure of interviewing last Spring. Her recipes always inspire!

So when I saw these Jewish holiday treats, us yids like to call Hamantashin, I was inspired to get baking. Purim is maybe the only Jewish holiday that I love- mainly because it involves costumes (I mean officially, my family puts on costumes for most holidays). It's a holiday to celebrate the deliverance of Jews from a bad guy (as many of our holidays, in one form or another).

So I was off to have dinner with my family, celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday and made these.

I followed Elana's recipes as closely as possible for me. I am completely recipe illiterate- ironic I know because I basically create, write and teach recipes for a living.

I spent so much time folding them into their traditional triangular shape.

And popped them into the oven for the 7-8 minutes the recipe called for. I expected mine to come out looking just like Elana's!

Alas- that was not to be. I have since read through the recipe twice and I am confident that my small changes were not significant enough to result in the cookie puddles they turned into. Delicious cookie puddles, I may add, but puddles all the same. No triangles here.

Let this be a lesson, that even professional recipe creators may miss something when sending out their recipes, and on the flip side, even a professional recipe creator can have flopparoos when following someone else's recipe from time to time. Have mercy on us all!

Elana, are you there? What did I do wrong???

These, of course weren't a total flop. They were still delicious. And so here is my version of what is now being called The Raspberry Puddle Cookie

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The Raspberry Puddle Cookie
(inspired by Elana's Pantry)

2 ½ cups almond meal
¼ cup cacao powder
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup coconut oil
½ cup raw honey
raspberry jam (check out my homemade jam recipe here)

Preheat oven to 350
Mix together your dry: almond flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda
In a separate bowl mix (or melt together over low heat) the coconut oil and honey
Mix the wet goods into the dry
Scoop roughly 1 Tbs size balls of dough, roll into a ball and flatten with your hand- leave about 1/2-1 inch between cookies.
Dollop 2 tsp worth of jam into the middle of each cookie
Bake 15 minutes until cookies are golden brown around the edges
Serve

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Are you a cookie monster like me? Check out these other goodies!

Question Of The Day: What has been your most delicious recipe disaster?

11 Responses to “Grain-Free Raspberry Cookies”

Jen said… March 24, 2011

I think the type of almond meal you use makes a big difference. I read (and maybe on Elana's blog) that the brand can really make a difference. Regardless, these look like the soft raspberry centre cookies sold under the brand "Vortmans", which means you are genius! I loved those cookies.

- Meghan Telpner said… March 24, 2011
  
  She calls for blanched almond flour- I just ground up raw almonds. That could have something to do with it. Going to drop her a note and ask.
  
Samantha Angela @ Bikini Birthday said… March 24, 2011

This is the first year I've heard of hamantashin and I'm seeing the all over the place! I definitely want to try them sometime...and then try making them myself :d

Vanessa said… March 24, 2011

I actually think yours look a lot tastier!! More golden...

Deborah said… March 24, 2011

I think they look wonderful regardless. But I get that you wanted them to be triangles and since my family and friends seem to think I have special powers when it comes to figuring out where they went wrong in recipes, I'll put in my 2 cents :-) I think you didn't grind the almonds finely enough. So, I looked on youtube (since you can find out how to do EVERYTHING there lol) and found this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYi0I3xtIs0 and this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Qg-0zraZY&feature=related The first uses blanched almonds, but the second uses whole. Hope that helps!!

Nicole said… March 24, 2011

In my experience, little to no leavener is best when using almond flour (or ground almonds) for cookies like this, since you don't want them to be puffy. I'd also consider reducing the coconut oil so they don't spread.

Alisa Fleming said… March 24, 2011

Ah, we've both got raspberry jam on the brain! I've got to check out your recipe for that jam too, but am still oggling this recipe :)

Jennifer R. said… March 24, 2011

It looks like Elana updated her recipe on 3/21 -- omitting the baking soda and grapeseed oil.

Val said… March 24, 2011

I wonder if a bit of arrowroot or tapioca would help keep it together, at least if using ground almonds rather than blanched almond flour.

kate@ahealthypassion said… March 24, 2011

I love the word puddle haha and these cookies look so yummy I love mess ups cause I can keep them for myself.

Kate said… September 26, 2012

I had to thaw a whole bag of frozen raspberries, and needed a use for them the next day. I used this recipe, minus the baking soda. And made many tweaks along the way, as I only baked 6 cookies at a time. I used only about a 3/4 cup of honey, maybe, because I'm both cheap & poor. And a tablespoon or so of coconut oil & probably about two cups worth of the raspberries, some of the juice made it's way into the cookies. I also whirred up some pumpkin seeds to absorb some of the wetness of the thawed raspberries & help them bake faster, the oil helped them to be more 'fudge-y'. And for the final batch I put a tiny piece of chocolate to melt on top of each one :)