The Gluten Free Bake: Cacao Chia Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are the ultimate snack food - especially when they're the perfect combination of chewy and crunchy. So when I spotted this recipe, I knew I had to have a play around with it to find the perfect substitute for a chocolate cookie.

It's vegan, gluten, lactose and refined sugar free so is perfect if you're intolerant to any of those ingredients or simply looking to cut back on the sweets!

Here's the recipe I used to make ten large cookies:

• 1/3 cup ground almonds
• 1/3 cup broken up hazelnuts
• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/3 cup dark agave syrup
• 1/4 cup medjool dates
• 1/4 cup water
• 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
• 3 tbsp chia seeds (I soaked mine first)
• 2 tbsp coconut oil (melt after measuring)

This recipe is so easy, simply blend the dates and when they form a paste, add in the rest of the ingredients still a sticky dough forms. But be careful, it's really sticky so if your blender or food processor isn't brilliant, you may want to mix half the dough at a time.

Then simply pop them on a well lined baking tray, flattening the mixture before you put it in a 180C oven for 15-20 minutes. As this mixture can be eaten raw (no eggs etc), the point of the bake is simply to give them that cookie crunch.

These cookies are so lovely, the dates provide a wonderful natural sweetness and the cacao powder helps to cure those chocolate cravings! If you want to add another dynamic, try adding some cacao nibs (which are essentially raw chocolate chips) for a more chocolatey flavour. Because of the coconut oil, these do have a slight coconut taste so if you're not a fan of coconut, try vegetable oil or sunflower oil instead. 

Would you try these? What have you been baking recently?

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This post may contain items that have been sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.