Aunt Rocky’s Low Carb Almond Cookies (with variations)

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment or silicone baking sheet, set aside.

Whisk all dry ingredients together in a small mixing bowl, set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, melt coconut oil in the microwave. Add ricotta, both extracts, and egg yolk. Whisk until well blended.

Add dry ingredients and mix with a large mixing spoon (batter is too thick to use a whisk on this step).

Using a 1-inch cookie scoop, drop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheet. Flatten each cookie a bit with your finger tips. Lightly brush the top of each cookie with beaten egg white. Garnish each cookie with an almond slice poked gently into the dough.

Bake 20 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Turn oven off and leave cookies in the oven for another 5 minutes or so to help brown the tops.

These cookies are very fragile when they first come out of the oven. Leave on cookie sheet for about 10 minutes before carefully transferring to cooling rack. Cookies will crisp as they cool.

I store them on my counter in an open container to make sure they stay crispy. They can be frozen, but will be soft when defrosted. I haven’t tried putting them back in the oven to crisp up, but it might work.

Notes:
1. Refined coconut oil does not have the coconut taste. If you use an unrefined (or “virgin”) coconut oil, that will impart a coconut taste to whatever you use it in.
2. For an egg-free cookie, the egg can be omitted entirely. The flaxseed meal will serve as the binder. If the dough is too dry, add water a teaspoon at a time until it seems right.

Variations:
Lemon Cookie: Replace almond extract with lemon extract, and add a little lemon zest or lemon oil for more flavor. Sprinkle top with lemon sugar as soon as they come out of the oven (mix granulated sweetener with True Lemon dry lemon powder to taste).

Cinnamon Spice Cookie: Replace almond extract with cinnamon spice emulsion or cinnamon oil. Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to dry ingredients. Lightly sprinkle top with cinnamon sugar as soon as they come out of the oven (mixture of cinnamon and granulated sweetener).

Nutrition estimates are calculated per serving with My Fitness Pal’s online recipe analyzer. If you make any changes to the ingredients, your results may differ. The recipe is stored there and available to MFP users for logging in their food diaries. Send an MFP friend request to auntrocky1 so you can access my recipes on MFP.I do not include sugar alcohols or liquid Sucralose in my nutrition counts, as they are not absorbed by the body and rate zero on the glycemic index.

Calories 56, Total Fat 5 g, Saturated Fat 2 g, Sodium 25 mg, Potassium 4 mg, Total Carbohydrate 1.2 g, Dietary Fiber 0.5 g, Net Carbs 0.7 g Sugars 0 g, Protein 2 g. Macros: 85% fat, 15% protein, 0% carbs.

© January 20, 2018 Roxana Lopez for Aunt Rocky’s

For more low lchf/keto recipes and cooking tips, look for Aunt Rocky’s Low Carb Recipes & Tips Group on Facebook, or follow me on Pinterest at auntrocky2.

I don’t get any commission or kickback for products I use or mention in my recipes. Brand names are included only to assure a similar outcome to mine, and more accurately assess nutritional estimates, which are based on exact ingredients I used.