Almond & Spelt Cookies

A few months ago, I made my first batch of almond milk. It was a revelation, after years of hating the stuff, I realised, that I only hate the store bought almond milk. The homemade version, is absolutely heaven!!!

However, after making almond milk, you are left with an almond sludge. Some people use it as almond meal. I haven't made anything with almond meal for a long time, so the stuff just goes into the freezer waiting for me to get inspired to make something, anything with it.

Last weekend, I made two batches of almond milk. It was delicious. Also, it's all gone. I had quite a bit of almond sludge left over. It stared at me sadly from a bowl ont he counter, knowing that soon it would join it's brethren in the depths of my freezer, soon to be forgotten.

I couldn't take it, and in about half an hour or so, I had a batch of almond cookies made up.

Warning, these are a little bit too sweet. I will give you the recipe as I made them, however, the next time I make them, I will reduce the sugar but at least 50gms.

Nevertheless, they are awesome with a cup of chilled almond milk. These are soft cookies.

Nom noms, enjoy!!!

Ingredients

285 gms of almond sludge (leftover meal from making almond milk)
150 gms coconut nuttlex
200 gms raw organic sugar
100 gms spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Break up the almond sludge, until it's crumbly.
2. Sift flour and baking powder together.
3. Cream sugar and nuttlex until light and fluffy.
4. Add almond and flour mix to the nuttlex mix. Fold in gently, to form a dough. You want to keep as much of the air beaten in as possible.
5. When thoroughly  mixed, either place the mix into a piping bag with a large star tip (Loyal No 17 has approximately 2.5cm wide star) and pipe stars or roll into 2.5 cms balls and slightly flatten.
6. Bake for 20-30 minutes, do not allow to brown too much.
7. Cool on a rack and store in an air tight container.

Eggless Chocolate Macaroons (Vegan)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of almond meal
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup of Aqua Fava (Water from a can of chickpeas)
4 tablespoons of cocoa 
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar









Method

1. Preheat oven to 145 degrees celcius.
2. Cover two cookie trays with baking paper. Set aside.
3. Sift flour, almond meal and cocoa together, and set aside. The purpose of sifting is to remove any lumps from the cocoa and to mix all the ingredients together. Do not discard the larger bits of almond meal that are left in the sieve, put them in the mix also.
4. Place aqua fava in the bowl of a stand mixer with the cream of tartar.
5. Beat on low until it gets foamy and increase the speed. Beat until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla at this stage.
6. Start adding sugar to the meringue one tablespoon at a time, ensuring it is well mixed each time.
7. Remove bowl from mixer and add all of the dry ingredients, fold them in until well incorporated.
8. Pipe them onto the cookie trays using a large piping tip or place them on the tray with a tablespoon.
9. Bake for 25 minutes, they should not brown.
10. Set aside and cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the tray.
11. Store in an airtight container.
12. Enjoy with a nice cuppa!!!!

These macaroons improve once stored in an airtight container for a few hours. They become more chewy. This recipe was an experiment. I think that next time I make them I will reduce the sugar amount by about 1/4 cup, as they can be a little sweet. But oh my!! they are delicious and moorish!!

Aqua fava is all the rage at the moment in the vegan world after it was discovered that it can be used to make lovely meringues.

For more information and recipes join the Vegan Meringue - Hits and Misses! group on facebook. There are hundreds of people on there sharing their recipes using AF (aqua fava), their failures and successes.

This is really great news for not only vegans but for people that have egg allergies.

Enjoy!!!