Hazelnut Meal-Flour Cookies

So many people stumble upon my blog looking for hazelnut meal/flour recipes and since I’m equally curious about making something with hazelnut flour, I decided to go ahead and try something new…again!  I’m so glad I did.  These are truly amazing.  The toasted hazelnut is the star flavor in this cookie with some sweet to enhance and of course some chocolate to enhance even more.  I found this recipe from a girl from Spain, which includes almond flour and white sugar which I omitted both in place of all hazelnut flour and agave nectar and less sugar and chocolate.  I love the flavor of almonds, but I didn’t want anything getting in the way of the delicious toatsed hazelnut taste!  The recipe originally comes from a gluten-free cookbook entitled, “Cookies For Breakfast” by Michael Perlman.  Unfortunately, these cookies are so delicious that I had a few for breakfast, as the book title states.  Oops.  Well, they are much healthier than sugary cereal I guess.  They are so darn good I couldn’t think of eating anything else this morning!

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 c agave nectar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 c oat flour (if you’re going gluten-free, just make sure your oat flour is certified gf)
• 1 heaping cup toated hazelnuts
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 350
• Toast hazelnuts until lightly browned, about 8 minutes
• Remove from oven and with paper towel, remove as many skins as you can, the ones that stay on are just fine.
• Put hazelnuts in food processor or blender, grind until a fine powder or a little chunky, I kept some tiny chunks so the cookies would have a nice crunch.  Allow to cool before adding to cookies or the hot hazelnuts will melt the butter and flatten the cookies
• Cream agave, brown sugar, and softened butter, add egg and vanilla and blend
• Mix oat and hazelnut flour with baking powder and salt, add to wet mixture and stir, add chocolate chips and stir
• Bake for 7-10 minutes, I made smaller cookies so they were done in 7-8 minutes (my hot oven is finally fixed so it’s normal!)

These cookies are sensitive to the type of cookie sheet you put them on.  The picture above is the prettiest cookie, baked and pictured with the Paula Deen pan with the silicone (Silpat like) sheet on top.  I also made these with a dark sheet and they were nice and fluffy but the bottoms browned faster, and I also made them with a lighter cookie sheet with a Silpat.  Those turned out flat.  However, they are ALL equally delicious no matter what type of cookie sheet you bake them on and how browned the bottoms may get.  The flat ones are chewy and a little more candy-reminiscent, so my husband likes them better.  Maybe I do too?  None are burnt, just the hazelnut is even more toasted.  Wonderful!  I think the next time I make these, and I definitely will soon, I’ll either buy a bigger Paula Deen cookie sheet, or I will use my nice dark sheet but turn the temperature of the oven down to about 335.   Pretty cookies are nice to share.  Speaking of…here’s a really cool blog post  about how cookies should be refrigerated before baking and shows pictures of various refrigerator times and how the cookies turn out showing the optimal pretty cookies.  I love that post.

Tagged as: agave nectar, flourless, hazelnut flour, oat flour