Crispy Business

After making a flurry of cookies that asked for under-set centers which stiffen to the perfect chew factor once cooled, I approached this deliberately crispy, non-shortbread cookie from Food52 with a dash of trepidation. The main selling factor of making them was the kitchen sink point. Got little amounts of granola, some salty nuts, chocolate chunks and/or other snack-ish items that could be used up? Throw it into this salty-sweet everything cookie. The other great thing? Crispy cookies are good in their own right... I'd forgotten.
 

The dough comes together in a stand mixer but with minimal creaming/mixing--that's what gives you the crisp factor. I then opted to scoop and freeze dough balls to bake in the next few days, and the dough lends itself to that, just let the balls thaw few minutes while the oven preheats.

I chose a combination of leftover granola, salted cashew and dark chocolate, and you can do anything in that territory. Leftover Halloween candy? Sounds like a deal. Low in flour, bound together with minimal egg, good butter and just the right amount of regular and brown sugar, these cookies shine by way of their add-ins, so choose wisely. In the terrain of flour, I replaced just a smidge of all-purpose with some oat flour. The recipe below will yield 7 regular size cookies. Because 7 is a magic number and it's Halloween week! Enjoy : )

Marvelous Kitchen Sink Cookies
(Adapted from Food52-the large batch recipe is here)

Makes 7

• 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 T oat flour (I just ground oats, or use all all-purpose) 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 1.75 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 a beaten egg (12 grams)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup granola 
• 2 T rough chopped salted roasted cashews or other nut
• 2 T (heaping- about 30 grams) chopped chocolate 

1. When ready to bake, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 
2.  Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl.
3. In a mixer, beat butter and sugars at medium-low speed until just combined, about 20 seconds. Increase speed to medium and continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute longer. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. Add egg and vanilla and beat on medium-low until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl again.
4. On low, add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add granola, chocolate and nuts, and mix until just incorporated, ensuring that no flour pockets remain and ingredients are evenly distributed.
5. Scoop dough into balls, (each about 29 grams for me, or medium scoop size/ 1.5 T).  Freeze at least 20 minutes, or refrigerate at least one hour before baking. (MN note: I froze balls for a half hr then transferred to freezer bag to bake later)
6. Place cookies on prepped baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake just one sheet at a time until cookies are deep golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes (add a minute perhaps if frozen), rotating baking sheet halfway through. Let cool completely before gently moving cookies to wire rack.

Buck Up

I'm no stranger to self-imposed ingredient fasts. Unlike juice fasts, which would probably result in me unintentionally harming someone, I think ingredient fasts or "deals" are great for managing budgets, cleaning up shop and staying creative. I like to think of it as building with the pile of leftover wood I have in front of me even if it means manicuring it a bit, before going off and buying new wood. Simple. This is also the way I get us to eat up the things that can often get buried in the fridge: like beet greens. Just pick out the prettiest ones, chop and sautee and...free greens!

But lately, I've been opting to impose this ritual onto baking supplies. Last week, I finally picked up a bag of buckwheat flour. I've been dog-earing a few recipes with this "gluten free flour that's not a grain but a seed related to rhubarb" to play with, so it'd been an anticipated purchase, but not before I made myself finish both the whole wheat and spelt flours in the freezer. 

 

And as far as I can tell, we're going to have a nice time together: this buckwheat affair deserves the clean slate. Because boy do I like buckwheat. Aside from it's smoky color, lack of gluten and unmistakably nutty taste, it beckons moisture from good butter and cream in baked goods, while asking for little else, and that, to me, is striking a balance: super-healthy super-foodish seed/grain and rich/potent/pure dairy. I sort of felt the same way when I made these jammy rye scones.

I probably don't have to tell you, this recipe comes from Kim Boyce. I made one small change: I switched out the fig butter she has you make for quick apricot butter I made with a small bag of some Turkish apricots my mom gave me and added a smidge vanilla to the cream because, why not?  The quick stove-top apricot butter/filling I made is this one, designed for Hamantaschen, but great for scones too. Though I have no doubt fig butter is awesome in these buckwheat scones, I really liked the apricot butter, for both taste and color contrast. Also, due to an obsession with small batches, I quartered the original recipe. Since there's lots of full batches out there already on the web, I'll write up my quarterly one below, in case you, too, only have a few mouths to feed. And as always, I recommend a scale for easier clean-up and accuracy.

The best thing about this dough is you can and should, make it the day before. Boyce has you rest it chilled for a half hour and up to 2 days, before baking off anyway, so why not just let it rest overnight? Then it's just a sleepy walk to the fridge and distracting yourself for the 35 minute bake. There is half the dough, having slept in plastic, on the table at 8 am ready to be baked. Because we all know scones are best having been just baked that day and slightly cooled. Another option is to freeze a few after cooling and reheat in a low oven.

One thing I've learned from working with Boyce's various whole grain flours recipes is that different flours react differently, as do different doughs, and she's done lots of testing to know the ins and outs. Because of the nature of patting out, rolling up and chilling this dough, for example, you don't have to worry about plopping warming scone dough onto a sheet pan and hurrying it in the oven. The dough is also eggless and thick, similar to a shortbread cookie dough but because of it's thickness, butter ratio and shape, the interiors will stay soft and scone-ish.


And the verdict? Yes. Delicious. Boyce does not back away from the buckwheat here. Nearly  half the flour ratio is buckwheat, the other half all purpose. And even that's a lot for a scone, but it's really great here. She pushed the envelope as far as possible with the buckwheat flavor to really let it shine. If you do try this, know that pretty much any fruit butter could be subbed for the fig. But you want it to be a thickish butter, not a drippy jam.

Have a great week everyone : )

Apricot Buckwheat Scones
Barely Adapted from Good the the Grain
Apricot Butter from Shiksa

Makes 4 scones

1/4 cup / 34 g buckwheat flour
1/4 cup + 1 T / 40 g all-purpose flour
2 T / 20 g natural cane sugar
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

1 ounce / 29 g cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces and chilled
1/4 cup + 1 T  / 75 ml heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup / 2 oz fruit butter
 
Whisk all dry together.

Add butter to the dry mixture with pastry blender/ fingers, breaking it into smaller bits. Continue rubbing until the butter is coarsely ground and feels like grains of rice/peas. Work fast.

Add the vanilla to the cream and gently mix it into the flour with a spatula until the dough is just combined.

Dump it onto a barely floured piece of plastic wrap, press and fold it over itself once or twice. Dust hands with a smidge flour,  lightly press the dough into a rectangle hitting a bench scraper against the sides, so it is about 3 inches wide, 5 inches long, and 3/4 inch thick.  I did not find a rolling pin necessary.

Spread the fruit butter over the dough then roll into a tight log, so the seam is on the bottom and the weight of the roll seals the edge. Slice the log in half, wrap loosely with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. (The dough can be kept, covered, in the refrigerator for 2 days.)

When ready to bake preheat to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice one or both pieces of dough in half again. Bake 30-33 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through.

The scones are ready to come out when their undersides are golden brown, and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool a bit on a rack 6-10 minutes at least. They are best eaten slightly warm from the oven or later that same day.

Prepeared

I was inspired to make this mini baked oatmeal after seeing this gorgeous recipe from Not Without Salt and reading Alana's post about the sometimes perplexing issues with pears and baking. For a few days I had pears on my mind, yet the pear sat in the bowl growing riper. Finally, as it felt cool last night, I decided this warm bake would have to be done the next day. As far as baked oatmeal goes, I've made the blueberry-banana-maple-walnut version in Super Natural Everyday before, and loved it. But here, brown sugar, pear (and my hazelnuts) I think take it up a few notches from any-season basic to fall sophisticate. They are like the deep brown booties I just bought at JC Penny after forcing myself to throw out my beaten black basic booties which looked and felt like they'd been to battle and back (aka the NYC streets).

This oatmeal is easy to put together and enjoy as it is, but is even more so if you take a few steps beforehand. Luckily I've done the main one for you: scale it down to a smaller serving. I don't know about you but sometimes the one thing that stops me from following a specific breakfast recipe is the fact that it often serves 6 people. Other things: the pear, for example, can be set on the table, bruise side up, so you make sure the dish happens the next day : ) Secondly, you can toast nuts and mix your dry ingredients in bowls both for the oats and the topping and leave it covered on the counter overnight so in the morning you'll just preheat the oven, melt some butter, mix some milk, egg and vanilla, slice the pear, "tuck" it in (thanks, NWS) and pop it in to bake. I scaled down this recipe a lot- basically divided it by four, and baked it in  this little dish, so it also cooked more quickly. I'll reflect that in the recipe below as well as some adaptions that I found easier to deal with when working with small batches. Hope you're enjoying the chillier mornings (I like to think of it as invigorating). Have a great week everyone : )


Roast Pear + Hazelnut Baked Oatmeal for One (Or 2 as a side?)
Adapted from NWS 


1/2 cup rolled oats
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
Small pinch each cloves + nutmeg and optionally (and lovely), a small pinch fresh chopped rosemary
1/8 teaspoon  salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 of a beaten egg (this is 12 grams)
*1.5 tsp tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 small pear, cored, cut in 4 slices

Crumble Topping
2 Tablespoons hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and chopped roughly
*1 tsp butter, melted
pinch salt
3/4 tsp brown sugar

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and place a scant *1 T butter in the baking dish and into the oven. When it is melted, pour the butter into a small bowl to reserve for your oats and topping, making sure the sides of the baking dish are moistened

In a small bowl, combine oats, baking powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, rosemary and salt. Stir together. (Note: I did this the night before)
Pour this mixture into the buttered dish.

For the crumble: combine nuts, salt, and sugar (night before)

In the morning, in another bowl, combine the  milk, egg, 1.5 tsp of the reserved melted butter and vanilla. Whisk together completely. Slowly pour this over the oats.
Tuck the pears into the oats.

Take 1 tsp of the melted butter and mix with the crumble mixture. Pour the mixture over the oats/pears.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the center is cooked through and the crumble is deep golden and caramelized. Let cool at least 5-10 minutes.

Serve with whatever you fancy but I opted to mix a little honey and cinnamon into the leftover melted butter bowl and drizzled atop.

Enjoy!

Nut Better

I wasn't, dear reader, going to bother to share these with you, as they are all over the web in different forms and everybody (I think?) knows about the three-ingredient peanut butter cookie, but, you click around this site because you trust me, right? Maybe we have similar taste buds or flavor DNA? And so, it's with confidence that I present these Flourless Almond Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies. One bowl, a few ingredients, butterless, flourless. That alone is enough to turn on the oven.

Sure, they aren't the same as a floured nut-buttered cookie (these are my choice floured peanut butter cookies) but... if you like chewy centers, slightly crisp edges and want a recipe in your arsenal that you really don't have to plan much for (there are a few things you can optionally do if you want to be a little more anal/precise but we'll get to that), then this is a very good cookie for when you don't want to be bothered and for when you're not feeling flour. And if you have a scale, it will be even easier.

The quest for this started yesterday. I was in a slight funk. Nothing major, I just couldn't manage to do much. First thing in the morning, I'd power-walked across town on a mandated empty stomach to and fro to have blood drawn for a physical. When I arrived home, chilled, hungry, and slightly speckled with raindrops, I seemed to go into snowed-in-mode: hot beverage, already made baked good, and computer time. The cold wind blew against the trees throughout the morning and I seemed to lull with it, donning an old black hoodie and Ed's heavy socks, distractedly approaching my work on the screen.


When the latter part of the day rolled around, I wanted a no-fuss sweet with my tea: a flourless nut-butter cookie with what I had on hand...which was...tahini? A quick web search showed it had been done. So I mixed a batch up but I knew the problem before they went into the oven. My tahini is powerful stuff, not the light kind. So, they were ok, but I was not totally digging. Not bad, but, the tahini was too dark/deep in flavor here for me to become neutralized into it's sweetest cookie-self. So I noted: neutral-er nut butter (beyond peanut) + vanilla. Ed liked them, though, so I gave him the rest. Both of us are suckers for anything with nuts and dark chocolate.
 

Ahem. Take 2, enter almond butter.

With almond butter, the nut flavor is fainter. You're not eating a peanut butter cookie, you're eating a faintly almond-based cookie with chocolate chunks. The almond butter, when cooked, has a nice slightly magical way of neutralizing itself thus becoming both the flour and the butter of the recipe.

Now, if you want to fuss a little...

-Another great thing about this (again I mention the scale) is that you can play mathematician and divvy up the base recipe to make however many cookies you'd like. The basic formula being 1: scant 1:1: 1 + a chocolate add in. Know that that base formula will make around 20 cookie balls about a tablespoon in size. For this batch, I quartered the base formula and made 5.

-Also, to ensure even baking, simply weigh the dough log/mass and divide accordingly. My dough log weighed 125 grams, so I made each ball about 25 grams before baking off.

-Chilling is optional, but I found it a good step. It lets the log firm up a tad for easier ball-forming. And chilling dough never hurts when it comes to flavor-melding.

-Once scooped, you can flash freeze the dough balls and bake from the freezer adding a few minutes to baking time.

Here you go : )

Flourless Almond Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Lightly adapted from here and here

Base recipe:
1 c (220 g) creamy almond butter, natural, and WELL STIRRED (I used Once Again)
Scant 1 c (140-170 g) sugar (I used a combination of coconut sugar and natural cane)
1 egg lightly beaten
Pinch salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
Heaping 1/4 c (60 grams) Chopped dark chocolate

Method:

Preheat oven to 350/line sheet with baking paper.
Beat almond butter and sugar together (no need for mixer, wooden spoon is good here)
Mix in egg, vanilla, baking soda and beat until combined
Fold in chocolate just until combined
Dump dough onto plastic wrap and press together into log.
+Optionally chill for 10-30 min
Pluck tablespoon size rounds of dough and flatten a tad on baking sheet
Sprinkle a few grains coarse salt.
Bake 10-11 minutes. They will be fragile and puffed but starting to brown on the sides and crack on top.
Cool on tray 10 min.
Cool further on wire rack until ready to eat : )

Fall Faves + Raspberry Rosemary Muffins

Despite the pressure, I haven't really jumped on the pumpkin bandwagon yet, or shall I say, hayride...

Though I may have roasted a butternut squash in a small dice, and an acorn squash in moon-like wedges,  sprinkling the nibs into a few salads and layering the half-moons with parsley, olives and feta beneath roast salmon, it's all merely been a flirtation...that inclination to fold pumpkin into everything hasn't hit yet. 

Apples and tomatoes and raspberries. They are still in their hay day as far as I'm concerned. So let's discuss. Today, I'm going to pass on 3 ways I've used those aforementioned early fall ingredients that still hint at summer. Besides just enjoying them raw and fresh...




For apples: This salad dressing. My gosh, it's totally worth the 5 minute stove-top caramelizing of chopped apple, and blending with oil and cider vinegar. It's the type of dressing you will pour on your salads for the few consecutive days after making it and watch the tree leaves start to turn, while your spinach leaves benefit. I followed the recipe to a T but cut it in half (and it still lasted several days) and subbed rosemary in place of thyme. Pictured above with this scone and an improvised "fall junkie" salad of blue cheese, toasted spiced pecans, chopped apples + shaved carrot bathed in a generous dollop of the dressing. Any combination of apple-complimentary produce works with the dressing but lean towards including strong cheese, and add-ins with crunchy, salty-sweet notes.

For the last legs of tomatoes: This oven frittata. I must admit, I'd always been a little wary of baking roasted tomatoes into a frittata, for fear of turning out a tomato sauce frittata, but this one works! I think the key is roasting the tomatoes separately and also keeping them whole. This recipe also came together super quickly and nicely (it just has a hands-off 35 minute trip to the oven). I think it's my new go-to oven omelet. It was also fun to bake as a rectangle and cut into squares. I pretty much followed Winnie's Recipe to a T but decreased it by a smidge and subbed rosemary in place of thyme, parsley for basil, and goat feta for manchego. We ate it all for a Sunday afternoon lunch (one of the eaters was male..)

And for raspberries....I want to share this muffin recipe with you. Also, I'm really digging fresh rosemary right now. Applicable to both the savory and sweet, rosemary adds depth. I love it in just the smallest dose with berries like raspberries (or blackberries) and find it completely complimentary to toasted almonds. So I fold all three into my favorite spelt batter morning muffins, the base batter of which is barely adapted from Super Natural Everyday.  Ever since I got a kitchen scale, I've found muffins less of a hassle and totally doable upon getting up whereas I used to consider them something to make ahead of time. But with a scale, no need for many measuring cups. Just weighing and tare directly into bowls. Done. And your baked goods' quality improves with weighing flour. I'm all about the scale. Anyway, the muffins. Yogurt-honey-spelt-battered and flecked with minced toasted almonds, rosemary-infused butter and a small smattering of raspberries, I think they are one of my favorites. Enjoy your week : ) xo MN

Raspberry Rosemary Muffins Recipe

Adapted from Millet Muffins-SNE

Makes 6

140 grams / 1 c + 1 Tbs spelt flour (I used 130 g spelt, 5 g almond, 5 g all purpose)
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t sea salt

1 egg, beaten (try to use room-ish temp)
120 ml / 1/2 c plain yogurt

60 ml/ 1/4 c honey
60 ml / 1/4 c barely melted unsalted butter
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon + 1 T juice
Half a sprig fresh chopped rosemary (about 1/2 tsp, minced)
Small handful fresh raspberries (just about 8-you don't want them to sog down the batter)

1 T toasted almonds, minced, divided (I whizzed in the food processor)
1 tsp turbinado sugar


Preheat oven to 400 degrees, lightly grease 6 muffin wells. Melt butter and set aside, adding in the rosemary flecks. Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt and half the almonds in one bowl. In another, whisk yogurt, honey, + egg together, then add the lemon juice and zest, and then the slightly cooled rosemary butter. Incorporate both wet and dry together gently, and fold in the raspberries. Pour into baking cups and sprinkle the turbinado sugar and remaining almonds on each one. Bake 15 minutes, let cool in the pan 5 mins, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

Blue Cheese and Onion Scones Redux

The last time I made these scones was just about a year ago. They tasted very good-it's blue cheese, onion jam tucked into buttery, nutty whole wheat dough! But their appearance was kinda sloppy and I remember sticky dough and tepid fingers and worry/regret when I plopped the dough onto the sheet pan into an oven I was just getting to know (and would replace shortly after that). I'm not going to beat myself up- they spread, the butter probably wasn't cold enough and I was afraid to actually mix and shape dough... but they were still tasty, because it's a good recipe--just on the softer side for a scone.

Remembering that compared to what came out of the oven the other day when I decided these were in order, I can at least say that practice makes for better and calmer everything. Somehow, I let a year slip by before making these again. And that is why I'm bringing them up today, because it is Fall, and these scones go incredibly well with your lunchtime squash/apple/pecan/variation-of-fall-junkie-salads, as well as being a more formal addition to an appetizer cheese plate and heck, I just ate one by itself for breakfast with a little butter, leftover onion jam and sliced seasonal fruit. As their savory and wholesome selves, they are interested and available for any mealtime, is what I'm trying to say... First, you'll have to make some **caramelized onions, but that's what big yellow onions are for : )



Now onto technique. I did a few things differently-I weighed my ingredients, worked quickly and efficiently, wasn't afraid to mix a bit, and I made sure it was cold going into the oven. I also worked with little squares rather than triangles when it came to cutting. I used a blend of whole wheat flour and all purpose, and I really cut the recipe down, to just make four scones, and I'll write that out below. And the other thing I noticed this year when I re-looked at the recipe in Kim's book, was that after being cut, the raw scones can stay in the fridge well covered for up to two days. So I baked two and refrigerated the other two, and can testify that the "aged" dough scone worked out swimmingly the next day when it was baked. That's all for now. xoxoxo MN

Blue Cheese and Onion scones
Barely adapted from Good to the Grain
yields 4 scones

48 grams/1/4c + 2 T whole wheat flour
39 grams/1/4 c + 1T all purpose flour
1.5 tsp sugar (I used coconut sugar)
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 ounce cold butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 ounce blue cheese, crumbled
60 ml/1/4 c buttermilk
2 T caramelized onions
1T honey

Preheat oven 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Stick butter in freezer while you sift together dry ingredients and combine wet. Whisk together the buttermilk, onions and honey and pop in the fridge. Add the cubed, cold butter to the dry ingredients and using a pastry blender break down the butter until it breaks down into pieces as small as crumbs and as large as squashed peas. Stir the crumbled blue cheese into the mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Gently combine the two until everything is incorporated and a soft ball is formed. Dump out the dough (I dump it onto a piece of plastic or parchment). Using lightly floured hands, gently flatten and fold dough over itself a few times and shape into a rectangle with a bench scraper. Shape into a rectangle 1 inch thick. Using bench scraper, cut the dough into 4 squares and transfer to baking sheet. Bake for 22-24 minutes, rotating the baking sheet around halfway through. The scones are finished baking when the tops are golden brown and the blue cheese starts to ooze out and starts to caramelize on the baking sheet. 

**To caramelize onions, heat a wide skillet over medium high, oil/butter it and add a big  chopped onion, cook til translucent, about 5-10 minutes, add salt, turn to a simmer for up to an hour for best flavor. Deglaze with a drop of vinegar and water. Cool completely and store in a jar in the fridge.  

Triple Coconut Cookies

As soon as I saw a photo of the Triple Coconut Cookies from London Bakes on Pinterest, I put it on my board even though I hadn't even yet looked at the ingredients. The title itself sounded bewitching enough, and the dark color of the dough felt perfect for Fall. But image aside, the ingredients are what really make this cookie a bit different and delicious. Coconut oil, coconut sugar, toasted coconut flecks and dark chocolate chunks are mixed into a 95-5 spelt-almond flour blend that gets kissed with vanilla and bound with just enough egg to make a dough. No mixer needed. You blend by hand here rather than creaming. And the taste? Wonderful. I like these a lot. I haven't used coconut oil in cookies before and really enjoyed it as an option. The cookies are mild, almost vegan and thin with great chewy centers, and even have a slight visual glisten from the coconut oil. I love how they turn dark from the coconut sugar. A great way to get a triple hit of coconut indeed.

The only thing I altered here was the spelt-almond flour blend (London used Einkorn and says spelt would work too). Not wanting to mess with things too much, I limited my almond flour to a pinch or the last 5 grams. Another good thing about the recipe is the freeze factor. The dough gets a quick chill then balls are scooped and can be baked off now in a 12 minute trip in the oven or frozen to bake from the cold later, in which they'd need an additional few minutes. And in case you're wondering what the beverage is in the last photo it's homemade chai concentrate from Beth at Tasty Yummies. I made a little batch over the weekend, stored it in the fridge and heat equal amounts of the concentrate and some milk (which I shake in a mason jar after it's heated to get the froth effect). That chai's a good idea with these cookies... See you soon xoxo MN
 


Triple Coconut Cookies 
from London Bakes


Makes 1 dozen

45g virgin coconut oil, softened
75g coconut sugar
1/2 large egg (26 grams beaten egg)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

70g flour (I used 65 g spelt flour and 5 g almond)
20g desiccated unsweetened coconut (I used flaked that I blitzed to shreds in the food processor)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
50g dark chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Theo dark)

Spread the desiccated coconut out on a baking tray and bake for about 5 minutes at 325 until it just starts to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. When cool,  whisk coconut shreds with with flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Beat together the coconut oil and coconut sugar with a spatula until combined. Add egg, vanilla and continue to beat until mixed.

Fold in the flour mixture, then fold in the chopped chocolate, mix until combined but not longer than that.

Place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Oven to 350. Roll out tablespoons of dough (I did about 20 gram balls) and place parchment-lined tray. *

Bake about 12 minutes until the edges of the cookies are just brown. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

*At this point you can freeze the balls. Freeze until solid, an hour or two, and then place the balls in a freezer plastic bag. Bake from frozen/ add a few minutes to the cooking time.