There is nothing on this earth more comforting than a warm, ooey-gooey, chewy, chocolate chip cookie. Add the complexity of rich coconut flavor and the texture of crunchy sea salt, and you have yourself the perfect paleo “healthy-ish” cookie. With zero flour or refined sugar, these are absolutely better than the “real thing!” I was inspired by Bakerita’s recipe and made a few small tweaks to create the cookie with the aroma and power to turn any day around. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get going!
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 12 cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup refined coconut oil (think room temperature, like softened butter)
- ⅔ cup coconut sugar
- 1 large, room-temperature egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla (or 1 real vanilla bean)
- ½ tsp chemical-free baking soda
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 ½ cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- 8 oz good quality dark chocolate (I like Hu dark chocolate gems the best)
- Fluer de sel or flaky sea salt, for garnish
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a mixer (with the paddle attachment), slowly “cream” together the coconut oil and coconut sugar until well incorporated. This is a really important step to achieve good texture, but don’t over mix or the mixture will break when you add in the egg.
- Critical step: Add in half an egg at a time and slowly incorporate until thoroughly mixed.
- Next, add in vanilla, salt, baking soda, and the almond flour in equal third parts, so the mixer has time to mix evenly.
- Lastly, add in the chocolate chunks and mix. Store in the fridge for at least 4 hours (although I think overnight turns out best).
- I have tried many methods, and the one that works best is to roll the dough into balls (approx. 12). Then, using a large fork, cross hatch the dough to flatten them a bit. When the coconut oil is very cold, the dough will be very firm, so please hold the edges of the dough while you fork press down so as to not crumble your cookie. Flattening them a bit will make them more cookie-like in texture than leaving them round would.
- Lastly, liberally sprinkle with coarse salt. Stick them back in the fridge on parchment-lined paper, ½-sheet trays. Wait until the oven is at temperature and bake them on the third highest rack toward the top for 10 minutes total, rotating at five minutes. (I’ve found this method yields an even, golden-brown bottom, crispy edges, and a melty gooey center. The hardest part is waiting until they’re cool enough to transfer to a wire rack, so you can eat them with reckless abandon!)
