Last week, I had leftover almond flour I wanted to use before it went bad. In other words, I needed an excuse to make cookies on a Tuesday. Upon realizing that I only had about half the amount of flour I needed, I decided to throw in some gluten-free oats. Although not sure how the combination of nutty flour and grainy oats would taste, I was crossing my fingers that the results wouldn’t be catastrophic.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while (bless your soul), then you know I’ve been on a mission to decrease the amount of added/refined sugars from my diet. UPDATE: I’m still riding the sugar-free bandwagon, and I feel like a million bucks. My sugar cravings have dramatically decreased, and I find myself having infinitely more energy than I used to.

So while recipe experimenting, I decided to only slightly sweeten these cookies with REALLY dark chocolate chunks. High in cacao and low in sugar, dark chocolate is loaded with soluble fiber and minerals such as fiber, iron, magnesium, copper, manganese, and zinc.

WARNING: store-bought chocolate is rarely “real” chocolate so be on the lookout!

The verdict of my gluten-free, dark chocolate chunk cookie experiment? Let’s just say this won’t be the last time I make them.

Grain-Free Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes 4 Jumbo Cookies (or 8 Normal-Sized Cookies)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup Almond Flour
• 1/2 Cup Oats
• 1/2 Cup Dark Chocolate Chunks (at least 85%)
• 3 Tablespoons Flax Seeds
• 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 Large Egg
• 2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
• 1/2 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 Cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
• Pinch Salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, coconut oil, vanilla extract, and almond milk.
3. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Let the batter sit 15 minutes before scooping equally-sized spoonfuls of batter onto a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet.
4. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.