Muffin Top

Hi–C(h)ristine here. Just a pause to say welcome to Mai, a new contributor at Muffin Top!

I’ve been baking a lot recently, we’re talking 3-4 times per week. I’m trying to perfect a way to make flourless chocolate chip cookies because I’m allergic to wheat and one of the things I miss is the crunch of cookies.

On epicurious.com I found a recipe for making flourless peanut butter cookies. I started with this recipe, using Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips and Laura Scudder’s Natural Peanut Butter.

After a stressful visit to a facialist, she asked without any prompting if I had been eating more peanut butter than usual. Curious (- how did she know? I thought), I replied in the affirmative. Turns out there is anecdotal evidence that peanuts (no other nuts are implicated) might have androgens and cause your skin to break out.

Since I was (am) still in the experimenting mood I decided to use different butters, such as Cashew Macadamia Butter. I started with the Marantha Cashew Macadamia Butter I found at a local health food store. Pouring off any top oil, I tried a batch, chopping up cashew nut pieces to add some body. The cookie tasted wonderful, but the runny texture didn’t allow for an attractive cookie. The next batch I added a little flax and a little more brown sugar. Aha! My almost perfect cookie.

CW says that the flax enhances the flavor of the cashew and gives it the “crack-like” quality. The thing I noticed was cookie’s texture is virtually indistinguishable from a regular flour-based cookie. Success!

Recipe follows after the jump…

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