I seem to be on a healthier eating kick more and more often now — to the point where I think it’s just becoming my regular routine. Sure, I fall off the wagon every few weekends when I indulge in a glass of wine (or two) and things that are as far from vegan and gluten-free as I can get.
Because YOLO.
Even when I’m paying attention to what’s going into my mouth, I still need treats. Preferably of the chocolate variety. But when you’re following a clean-eating program like the Arbonne 30-day challenge or you’re craving something sinful for phase 3 of the Fast Metabolism Diet — which are two of my more common weight-management programs — you still need to work within certain parameters with the ingredients you use.
And these no-bake chocolate almond butter cookies that I just whipped up are about as sinful as you can get. The really healthy ingredients are merely a bonus!
I made these a few days before I landed in the hospital, and they were a God-send. They gave me flavour and sustenance when hospital food was the only thing being served.
INGREDIENTS*
- 1/2 cup natural (unflavoured) hemp hearts
- 1/3 cup Xyla
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1 cup almond butter** (see below if you don’t have any or enough on-hand)
- 1/3 cup raw cacao powder
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 1.5 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 1 tbsp filtered water (on standby)
DIRECTIONS
- Blend the hemp hearts and Xyla in a Vitamix on “low” to refine their texture.
- Add almond flour, almond butter, cacao powder, vanilla and coconut oil to the Vitamix. If you use store-bought almond butter, you won’t likely need to add any water; if you made your own (using the recipe below), have a tablespoon or two handy just in case. I needed to add about a tablespoon.
- Mix on “low” using the tamper to really move the ingredients around.
- Spoon out 15-20 spoons of the mixture onto one or two foil-lined baking sheets in little (or medium-sized) balls. Note that these would also work as bars if you’d rather press the entire mixture into a cake pan instead!
- Take a fork and cross-hatch each ball like your Grandma would with peanut butter cookies.
- Freeze for 10-15 minutes on the trays.
- Carefully lift each cookie off the tray and store in an airtight container in the fridge.
*If you’d prefer to use the same brand-name ingredients as I did, here’s what I used (and no, this is not sponsored or anything — these are just ingredients I use in my everyday life): Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts (natural flavour), Bulletproof raw cacao powder, a pure vanilla extract from Mexico called ELIXIR by Villa Vanilla (sorry — bought in Mexico — might be hard to find!), Kirkland (Costco brand) organic virgin coconut oil.
**If you don’t have almond butter handy, but have raw or roasted (but not salted) almonds, you can make your own almond butter for this recipe. I was nearly done my jar of almond butter, so I took a cup of raw almonds and put them in the Vitamix with a couple of tablespoons of filtered water and about half a tablespoon of organic extra-virgin olive oil. Use the tamper and blend on the “low” setting until they take on a darker colour and seem well-blended.
Looking for another Arbonne- or FMD-compliant snack? You’ve gotta try my black bean brownies.
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