I am loving chocolate these days. Ever since I made that Chocolate Cherry Almond Granola I have been baking with a lot of cocoa powder and coming up with many delicious chocolate creations. I made these cookies because I love the combination of chocolate and almond. It took a few tries to get them just right. In all of the recipes I came up with I used maple syrup, but I didn’t get them quite sweet enough for my liking until last night. I made many batches with varying amounts of syrup, some with whole wheat flour and some with spelt flour. I decided on spelt flour for this recipe because it gives the best texture, not too chewy and not too crumbly. This cookie is everything I could ever want in a cookie.

Decadent and delicious.

Chocolate Almond Butter Stuffed Cookies

Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients

For the chocolate cookie

• 2 1/4 cups spelt flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the almond butter filling

• 3/4 cup crunchy almond butter
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup spelt flour

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Begin to make the chocolate cookie dough. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and sea salt. Add the maple syrup, sunflower oil and vanilla extract and mix until combined. In a separate smaller mixing bowl, stir together the almond butter and maple syrup. Add the spelt flour and mix until a dough forms. Roll the chocolate cookie mixture into 18 tablespoon sized balls. Roll the almond filling mixture into 18 teaspoon sized balls.

Take a chocolate cookie dough ball and flatten it down in the palm of your hand.

Place an almond butter dough ball in the center of the flattened chocolate cookie dough.

Fold the chocolate dough over the almond butter dough and roll into a smooth ball, covering the almond butter dough completely.

Place onto the baking sheet and flatten down slightly.

Repeat with all 18 cookies and bake for 8 minutes.

Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

Although these are a little labor intensive, they turn out so beautifully. I have made so many batches in the past week that it comes easy to me now.

The girls love these as well.

They are especially good with a nice cold glass of unsweetened almond milk.