Alicia writes Jaybird; she’s an AmeriCorps volunteer who loves to eat but can’t afford to try every new restaurant and type of cuisine. Instead of spending all her hard-earned cash paying other people to cook for her, she spends it as frugally as possible making delicious meals at home. Be friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!
Patience is a virtue that I am very, very bad at remembering when I bake cookies. I taste the dough at different steps, try a cookie the second a batch comes out of the oven, and then of course scarf down another even before remembering to pour a glass of milk.
Kerry and I share this trait, and when we first made these cookies together, we struggled to let the oven stay closed so it could work its magic. There’s something so tempting about the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting through the house—it just makes us want to wrench open the oven door to get a better look.
These fantastic pumpkin cookies will certainly have you impatient for more, but first, you should really let them cool. Not just “cool until they don’t burn your tongue off” but fully cool, ideally for at least an hour or two. If you eat these cookies fresh out of the oven, you won’t get to fully appreciate their rich, sweet taste. It takes resting for the flavors of this cookie to intensify and sweeten, and for the texture to become deliciously dense and moist. Once these things happen, these paleo-ish pumpkin cookies, adapted from a recipe from Everyday Paleo, are a phenomenal fall treat.
Paleo Pumpkin Cookies – Makes approximately 20 cookies
1 cup almond meal*
½ cup finely chopped walnuts
1 tbsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin or freshly cooked and mashed pumpkin
¼ cup coconut milk
3 tbsp real maple syrup
½ cup raisins or chocolate chips
While your oven preheats to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Whisk egg, coconut milk, and maple syrup in a smaller bowl, then pour into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix well. Add pumpkin and stir until combined.
Drop cookies by heaping tablespoon onto a greased baking sheet. Dough will not spread much during baking, so leaving 1″ between cookies is just fine. Push to flatten slightly and cook for about 20 minutes.
After removing from oven and allowing to cool for five minutes, transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Once cookies are cool to the touch, enjoy! Their texture and flavor will just keep improving overnight.
*Almond meal can be made by pulsing untoasted almonds in your food processor.
Enjoy!
Adapted from Everyday Paleo’s recipe for Laura’s Amazing Cookies