Swedish Heirloom Cookies
Can you even?
The Christmas Season is here and that means cookies. So many cookies. What are your holiday traditions? We have this Americanized traditional smorgasbord (have we mentioned we are a quarter Swedish?) that is made up of cookies, brittle, canned fish, and Jul Gröt – a milk and rice pudding with an almond for luck.
The holidays can be so hard. The butter, the flour, and the aromatic temptations pull you towards gastrointestinal doom. For me, it is the sugar. The flour is bad enough, but that sugar only feeds my enormous sweet tooth and makes me want MORE!
You can buy sugar-free cookies, and you can buy vegan cookies. I have personally never seen a vegan GF sugarless cookie… until today. We took a family classic, Swedish Heirloom Cookies (AKA Russian Tea Cookies or Mexican Wedding Cookies) and gave them a Wellness Boulangerie makeover.
Swedish Heirloom Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 C Coconut Oil
- 1 C Powdered Monkfruit Blend Sweetener plus more for rolling
- 1/2 TSP Salt
- 1 1/4 C Ground Almonds
- 2 C 240 g Sifted Maninis General Purpose Flour
- 1 TBSP Vanilla Extract
- 1 TBSP Water
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 325º.
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Cream the monk fruit sweetener, coconut oil, and salt until smooth, then add the ground almonds and mix again. Add the GF flour, water, and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
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Grab a small handful and shape into a ball and place on a greased baking sheet (or parchment or silicon lined sheet!) in rows. Slightly flatten each cookie with the bottom of a cup, then bake for 12-24 minutes, or until slightly golden.
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Remove from oven and let cool slightly on a rack, then roll in more powdered monkfruit. Cool some more, and try not to eat them all at once!
Recipe Notes
We gave such a large range for baking because our recipe calls for 12-15 minutes baking, but we took almost 20 minutes. We are not sure if it is our oven or the residence of the pizza stone on bottom that ate up our thermals, but you will want to see what your oven does for you.
We made our own powdered monk fruit from Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener, which we bought from Amazon.com. (I think you can get it at Whole Foods, or try your local natural food store.) This is a blend of erythritol and monkfruit and substitutes 1:1 for sugar. Process 1 cup sweetener in your blender until it becomes a powder - about 1 minute. You may add a tablespoon of cornstarch to prevent clumping if you are storing it, but it is not needed if you are using it all at once.
This is a tasty cookie, but not a readily transportable display cookie. If you roll them hot, the powdered sugar vanishes into the cookie, to be tasted unseen. If you wait until cooler, they are lovely, but the powdered sugar gets everywhere. Maybe you better keep this one to yourself!
I made an extra 1/3 C of powdered monkfruit sweetener (with 1 tsp cornstach, in case of storage) and this would have been enough for all of these cookies. However, a lot of it fell off the cookies onto the counter and went to waste, which meant I ran out and had to finish with regular powdered sugar. I suggest putting a baking sheet or a tea towel under your cooling racks to catch the falling sweetener. This will ensure easy clean up and increase your frugality score.
You can substitute some or all of the vanilla with almond extract for a special twist. Terradon wants to try rum. There was a variation with pistachios, craisins, and lemon that looked mighty fine and might just be in our future!
If you make this with regular powdered sugar, you don't need to make any changes. The original recipe used vegetable shortening rather than coconut oil, if you prefer, as well.
Adapted from a Traditional Family Recipe
It will look pretty rough before you roll into balls.
It should hold together once all the liquid is added.
I made bite-sized cookies. You can make them a little bigger, if you wish.
See the slightly flattened cookies? We aren’t going for squished, here!