First a very happy blog-aversary to today’s guest blogger, Nora from A Clean Bake!!!! She has been brining her delicious grain-free treats to the masses for a year now, and debunking the myth that you can’t both have your cake and eat it too when it comes to healthy living! Thank you Nora for playing such an important role in the going grain-free movement – we happen to truly love those who can make a recipe so delicious that those afraid to ditch the grains quickly reconsider.
And if you too belong to the very occasional treat club, no worries, Nora has you covered there too! With recipes like Moroccan Spiced Carrots, Creamy Vegan Kale Pesto, and Veggie Packed Quiche, Nora has something for everyone on her site. We strongly suggest you hop on over and take a look…especially at the brownie section of the recipe page, just saying.
Enjoy Nora’s recipe share below for Chocolate Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies!
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Hi, my name is Nora and I am a dietary flip flopper.
People who have known me for a long time know me as The Carb Queen. For most of my life, my diet consisted of four food groups: pasta, bread, cheese, and cookies. Actually, that’s being a little dramatic. I ate a lot of cupcakes too. Growing up, I was a vegetarian and lacked a firm grasp of good nutrition and my daily meals were high in sugar, carbs and dairy (for protein, duh). Feel free to cringe openly. It sounds kind of gross to me too, in retrospect.
I wish I could say that I had the self control to just wake up one morning and overhaul my diet because it was The Right Thing To Do, but that’s just not the case. I had to get very sick with what was essentially a severe leaky gut (and a lot of other issues that caused it) in order to finally become motivated to make a major change. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy, but there was also a silver lining: over time, I learned to listen to my body, trust my gut (literally) and figure out what was right for me. After a lot of trial and error, what ultimately ended up making my gut – and lots of other little problems I didn’t even realize I had – feel better was an unrefined, low-carb, grain-free diet centered around lean protein (including meat), healthy fats and vegetables – basically, Paleo! Talk about the ultimate dietary flip flop.
I think many here would probably agree that the biggest misconception is that eating healthy, grain-free and sugar-free means boring, flavorless food. I’ve made it my mission to prove them wrong and I’ve been documenting my journey for the past year on A Clean Bake (exactly 1 year, in fact; today is the one year anniversary of my blog!).
I may not be the carb queen any more, but I still can’t live without a sweet treat. And these chocolate hazelnut thumbprint cookies are one of my ultimate favorites. I mean, who doesn’t love the flavors of chocolate and hazelnut? No one – trust me. These start with a simple dairy-free and naturally sweetened hazelnut flour cookie base and are filled with refined-sugar free homemade chocolate hazelnut spread (aka DIY Nutella!).
I absolutely love sharing these cookies with family and friends who think “gluten-free” cookies are weird and “grain-free” cookies are impossible. But one bite of these chocolate hazelnut thumbprint cookies and they’re eating their words!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups finely ground hazelnut flour
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 2 Tablespoons coconut sugar or granulated sweetener of choice
- 1/8 teaspoon coarse sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons melted coconut oil
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup homemade chocolate hazelnut spread
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick pad.
- Whisk together the flours, sweetener, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, pour the melted coconut oil over the honey and whisk to combine. Add the egg and whisk to combine.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Allow to sit about 1 minute (this lets the coconut flour absorb moisture).
- Scoop 1 Tbsp balls of dough and flatten into a disc. Use your thumb or the back of a cookie scoop to gently press a well into the cookie. Fill with homemade chocolate hazelnut spread. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake for 9-12 minutes, until edges are slightly golden and the cookies give off the aroma of toasted hazelnuts.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://paleoparents.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/A-Clean-Bake-Headshot.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Nora is a grain-free baker and a clean eater who documents her gluten-, dairy- and sugar-free recipes on her blog A Clean Bake. She lives in Chicago and her hobbies include tricking people into thinking they are eating heavily processed desserts when they’re really eating healthy ones. Connect with Nora on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.[/author_info] [/author]
