As I continue in my effort to make things from ingredients I (or my “pets”) produce, I find myself toying with tried-and-true recipes. This example is my bog standard chocolate chip cookie recipe modified to include my almond meal and honey from my bees. It already used a egg from my chickens so no modification required there 🙂
This recipe produces cookies far superior to the ones I used to make from plain flour and sugar. They are rich with a really nice texture. And I’m sure they are better for you as well.
Here’s my new-and-improved Honey Almond Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:
1) Cream together:
– 1/2 cup melted (or very soft) butter
– 1/2 cup brown sugar
– 1/4 cup honey
– shy 1/4 cup white sugar (I wonder if this can be fully substituted with honey)
– 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2) Add 1 egg and mix thoroughly.
3) Gradually add dry ingredients:
– 1/2 cup Almond Meal
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 1 cup flour (This amount can vary hugely depending on the size of your egg and the moisture in your almond meal. I started with 1/2 cup and found the consistency more like cake batter, then added a further quarter cup twice before I had a wet but stable dough.)
4) Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips. (I bet you could leave out the chips and it would still be good – but why would you?)
5) Roll cookie dough into small balls and place on baking tray (drop cookies would also work).
6) Bake for 10 minutes at 190 F or until golden brown.
7) Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
This recipe makes about 40 cookies. I only managed to bake 38 but that’s because I ate so much dough (probably more like 4 cookies worth). It’s yummy raw, baked or half-way between!
Laura Rittenhouse's Gardening Journal 
Oh yummy! Lucky you with all that honey! by the way do you have an almond tree? sounds like you could do with one.
Now there’s a thought. I have what I call a flowering almond in my front yard. I really don’t know what it is. It is covered in dark pink flowers in spring and then gets some almond like fruit that falls off and dies before anything like a harvest. It could be a fruit with an almond like seed. That tree is really old and has lost limbs – it’s not doing well at all. Maybe I could replace it with a fruiting almond!
I love the ingredients in these! I will definitely have to test this out in my own kitchen quite soon!
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Oh, substitution is great. I have this great little cookbook full of only recipes altered and made with honey. I have a tendency to try using applesauce in place of butter a lot because I happened to get a couple bushels of apples for a very good price…and have been up to my ears in the stuff since!
I’ve heard apple sauce can be substituted for butter but have never tried it. I can’t imagine anything tasting as good as butter in baking but I could be wrong. Anyway, too much apple sauce is a wonderful problem to have.
Oh, and I’m jealous. I’m going to have to have a look to see if I can find a cookbook with recipes altered to use honey!
I’m a little mixed on the apple sauce and butter substitution…I never substitute for all the butter and it really depends on what I’m making. I’ve made loads of apple butter though…so too much apple sauce has definitely been good to me!
The honey cookbook I have is called “The Honey Cookbook” by Juliette Elkon. I don’t know if you can find it down there, but it resells for cheap used online. I’m sure there’s other similar books as well…but I really approve of this one so far. There’s a delicious brownie recipe where you can actually taste the richness of the honey after baking–it’s heavenly!
Thanks, I’ll have a look for the cookbook, it sounds like just what I need.