These grain-free, lightly-spiced molasses cookies are a wonderful treat around the holidays. Serve them with warm out of the oven or cooled – with a tall glass of cold raw milk or a nice hot cup of tea. Dipping the cookies in a little sugar before baking gives them a special festive touch that is so nice around the holidays.
Making the cookies is a cinch too…especially since everything is done in the food processor 🙂
- 1 1/2 cups almonds (soaked & dried using the Nourishing Traditions
method)
- 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil, softened (not melted)
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 cup arrowroot powder
- 1/3 cup rapadura or sucanat
- 1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (reduce to 1/4 tsp. if using salted butter)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Sugar, for dipping cookies in before baking (optional, though if not using, you may want to increase rapadura to 1/2 cup)
Note on Dipping the Cookies in Sugar: Dipping the cookies in sugar before baking gives them a little extra crunch, but most important of all makes them look festive for the holidays. If you do not want to dip the cookies in sugar before baking, you may wish to increase the Rapadura in the cookies to 1/2 cup…depending on how sweet you like your cookies.
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking/cookie sheet with parchment paper, for easy clean up. (or grease an un-lined cookie sheet)
Place the almonds in a food processor and process until they are ground into a fine meal. Add the remaining ingredients (except the extra sugar for dipping the cookies in), and process until well blended. The dough will probably be clumped together on one-side of the food processor. If dough seems soft, or a little warm, place in the refrigerator until firm.
Scoop out 1-Tablespoon sized portions of dough with a small cookie scoop. Dip top of cookie dough into a little sugar and place (sugar-side up) on prepared baking sheet. Leave a few inches in-between each cookie, repeat until sheet is full.
Bake cookies 5 minutes, then flatten the cookies with the bottom of a flat glass or measuring cup. Continue baking for 5 to 8 minutes more; the edges will be golden and firm, but the center will be slightly soft. Let stand on cookie sheet for 1 to 2 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Serve slightly warm or completely cooled.
Makes approx. 2 1/2-dozen cookies.
I really like it when folks get together and share thoughts.
Great site, continue the good work!
is there any substitute for arrowroot powder? I’ve not used it before.
Corn starch and tapioca starch are two possible substitutes for arrowroot. I avoid corn starch due to the gmo issues. So arrowroot is really my thickener of choice for most recipes. I do use tapioca starch in pudding recipes. You can find arrowroot in some upper end supermarkets and also online for reasonable prices.
How much is 1/2 cup butter in grams? Thanks.
According to AllRecipes.com
1/2 cup of butter = 113 g
are the molasses in syrup or sugar form?
Molasses is in syrup form.
great. do you think i could replace the molasses with honey? or only use honey, not rapadura, would I have to adapt the recipe having more liquid in it?
It is technically possible to replace the molasses with honey, but the only issue is that it wouldn’t be a “Molasses Cookie” anymore. The molasses is part of what gives a molasses cookie its “flavor”.
If you wanted to replace the rapadura with honey, you would need to adjust the recipe some. I’m not sure on the exact amounts etc. But you could increase the almonds some and possibly the arrowroot powder.
Thank you. I’ll try it one day 🙂 but I’m looking forward to trying the molasses cookies too!
This looks great! I have pre-ground almond flour; how much would I use that would equate to 1 1/2 cups of unground almonds?
Almond Flour is more finely ground so I have not tried it before. For the reason also that it is not “soaked”. All nuts and seeds contain Phytic Acid which blocks the absorption of vitamins and minerals, and therefore must be soaked to remove/neutralize this. See Raw Nuts: How to Soak & Why?.
But if you want to try the almond flour, the only way I could figure it out precisely is to measure by weight. By weight it should equal about 7 ounces.
Thank you! I made them per your recommendation and they are fantastic! I have never had a cookie that fooled anyone for being grain-free until these 🙂