Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

So chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookie, in particular with lots of dark chocolate, pecans or walnuts, and made with salted butter with a sprinkle of sea salt on top. I love salt. I love dark chocolate.  I love butter.

With the whole clean eating thing, I can't exactly have my normal choco chip that I love, or these, since I can't yet control myself and would probably eat the entire batch in bed, falling asleep to chocolate-y, chewy goodness and a stomach ache. So I googled "clean" desserts and I ran across recipes for cookies that use nut butters, natural sugar, and no flour or butter. Um, yes. Please. No need to search for any other desserts because I could just make variation after variation of these cookies and be a happy and satisfied lady.  I first experimented with baking peanut butter cookies using this formula, with a couple of comfort blanket tweeks, like using half white sugar and half brown and honey roasted peanut butter, and my peanut butter hating hubs LOVED them, as did my coworkers.

Since I had company last night, I made a dark chocolate clean version with almond butter and they were soooo yummy.  They are definitely up there with my salted butter ones.  And to think a cookie made without butter and flour would make it to the top of my cookie list!  We polished off an entire batch.  That's how awesome these cookies were, yeah, awe-inspiring delicious.  Even though these cookies are not unhealthy, they still contain sugar, which in the long run...well, you know. But enjoy! Bake these once in a while when you can't be cheating and a want a better alternative.  They are worth it and a great substitute. Or make them for a gluten-free or food sensitive friends! I promise, they'll shed a tear of joy.

The cookie batter will look oily because of the almond butter, but once they come out of the oven and are slightly cooled, they are chewy, have a subtle hint of almonds, and are divinely chocolate-y.  Please try them and let me know what you think!  Next time I make the peanut butter cookies, I will post those up as well!

Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies:

1 cup creamy almond butter
2/3 cup sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar), or raw sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
4 oz. dark chocolate bar, beaten into chunks (70% cocoa or more)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix almond butter with the sucanat until combined.  Add the egg, vanilla, baking soda, and sea salt.  Mix well.  Stir in the chocolate chunks.  Again, the batter will look oily and look as if it's going to fall apart, but believe in your cookies.  They will turn out properly!

Drop by the tablespoon onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes.  Let them cool for a bit on the baking sheet until they've set up.  And then nom, nom, nom!

Enjoy!