Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies

Nutty and sweet with a touch of bitter cocoa, these Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies are it’s perfectly healthy Holiday treat. Cookies are made with only NATURAL healthy stuff – no refined sugars, no empty calories.

I’ve promised you some more healthy and easy to make cookie recipes before Christmas, didn’t I?! And here it is – a super simple recipe for the healthier version of well-known vanilla baked crescent cookies. We all love them, right?

Well, my family is not any different. Every year for Christmas, my grandma makes a bunch of vanilla crescents cookies for the whole family. And they are THE BEST vanilla crescents cookies EVER! Sweet, buttery, covered in sugar… just delicious.

My husband loves grandmas cookies sooo much. So this year I just had to make my healthier version so he can fully enjoy them.

How to make Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies

To make a healthy Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies, as a base, I used whole wheat flour and almond flour – almond meal to be more precisely. Ok, don’t freak out now Almond meal / flour can be easily be made at home. To make it you’ll be needing only almonds and food processor. Simply grind almonds in a grinder for few seconds, until almonds turn into a flour and that’s it. Almond meal and almond flour both consist of ground almonds, but here are their subtle differences.

Almond meal is generally a coarser grind made from almonds that still have their skins, so you’ll see flecks of the skin in the meal. Almond flour is ground more finely and usually made from blanched almonds without no skins.

In addition to an almond meal and whole wheat flour, for making a Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies, I used maple syrup as a sweetener (you can replace it with honey), vanilla extract for flavor, and superfood coconut oil. Add the syrup to taste. I wanted to point out the nutty flavor of crescent so I didn’t use much syrup for sweetening my cookies.

To ensure that all ingredients are well connected, I also used one egg. Classic vanilla crescent cookies are sprinkled with white powdered sugar, and since I wanted a super healthy nutritionally enriched snack, instead of white sugar sprinkle I used a bitter cocoa as the dip.

The combination of sweet nutty and bitter cocoa flavors turned out to be really fantastic. When you take a bite, first you feel a bitter chocolate taste, and then suddenly you are overwhelmed with sweet and nutty cookie flavor that seemed to stick into your mouth, makes you want to eat more and more these Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies.

Enjoy and have a healthy holiday!

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Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies

Nutty and sweet Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies made with all healthy ingredients. It's perfectly healthy and nutritious snack.

Course Dessert

Cuisine International

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings 24

Author Natalie

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
• 2 tablespoon coconut oil melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

For Cocoa Dip

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey to taste

Instructions

1. In a food processor finely chop almonds. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, beat egg with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add syrup or honey, melted coconut oil and vanilla extract. Mix well.
3. Add flour and ground almonds (almond meal / flour). Stir and blend with hands until dough holds together. Form into a ball and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
4. Using a tablespoon and your hands, form dough into a log and bend into crescent shape. Place on parchment paper onto baking sheets.
5. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 325F (160°C). Bake cookies until slightly golden on the edges, 12 to 15 minutes. Watch very carefully, don't overbake cookies. They should be slightly soft to the touch.
6. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

7. Make cocoa dip. In a small bowl add melted coconut oil, cocoa and honey or syrup. Mix until well combined. 

8. Dip each cookie in a cocoa dip.
9. Store layered between waxed paper in airtight container.

Recipe Notes

As a measure I used UScup (240ml). 

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