White Chocolate Chai Gluten-Free Cookies

Are you as psyched that it’s Christmas as I am?! The tree, the lights, the music, the food, the books. Oh man, I probably say this every year (okay I’m positive that I say this every year) but if you have kids then you MUST get them Christmas in Noisy Village, and then you will have to buy ALL the Noisy Village books, because they’re sooooo good 🙂

Know what else is Christmasy? COOKIES! These White Chocolate Chai gluten-free cookies (hello, yum) come from my Paleo Chocolate Lovers’ Cookbook, which is full of healthy chocolaty recipes! I made this recipe at my book signing at Book Larder in Seattle last fall, and it was a big hit! In my book these cookies use my white chocolate recipe as an ingredient, but for this post I’m simplifying with a cacao butter substitution, which is good too. Our favorite way to eat them is straight from the freezer!

♥, Kelly

White Chocolate Chai Gluten-Free Cookies

Dry Ingredients

2 cups (224 g) almond flour
1/4 cup (34 g) arrowroot flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
A few cranks of black pepper to taste

Wet Ingredients

1/2 cup palm shortening (I buy my palm shortening in iHerb)
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons cacao butter
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped, seeds reserved

Drizzle ingredients

2 ounces cacao butter
1 tablespoon honey

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients—almond flour, arrowroot flour, cinnamon, cardamom, salt, baking soda, cloves, and pepper.
3. In a separate mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the wet ingredients—palm shortening, honey, white chocolate, and vanilla bean.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and combine them with the electric mixer.
5. Line a baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper.
6. Pack the dough into a 3/4-ounce (size 40) scoop with a lever, and level it off. Then use the lever to place each ball of dough on the paper.
7. Wet your hands, and use your palms to flatten each ball to about 2″ wide. Leave about 3″ of space between the flattened cookies to allow for spreading.
8. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden. They should look a little undercooked, as they will continue to cook slightly after they come out of the oven.
9. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before using a spatula to transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.
10. Put the cookies in the freezer for 20 minutes.
11. For the drizzle melt the cacao butter over a double boiler. Mix in the honey.
12. When you remove the cookies from the freezer, immediately drizzle them with the cacao butter / honey mixture.
13. Eat the cookies at room temperature, or store them in the freezer and eat them frozen. (They crumble less when frozen.)

Makes 18 cookies