Coconut Oil, Almond Butter Cookies

It is the third of December and it is really cold, like 28 degrees cold so of course we need some warm treats from the oven. My little boy is allergic to peanuts and it has been around 3 to 4 years since I last made some. I really love peanut butter and its a bummer to not be able to cook or bake with it whenever I please. Today I thought hey I bet I could find an almond butter cookie recipe that would be similar to peanut butter cookies, and I found lots of almond butter recipes and lots of them were paleo so they didn't call for flour but were okay with flour around here so I didn't feel like making some that weren't similar to what I love peanut butter cookies to be. Lately I've backed off using Crisco in my cookie recipes and have been replacing it with either butter or coconut oil, today I wanted to use coconut oil because I have zero patience with waiting for my butter to soften. I thought it would be hard to find a recipe that called for both almond butter and coconut oil so I adapted a peanut butter/ coconut oil recipe from Cowgirl Chef and came up with some really yummy cookies.

Almond Butter Cookies
ingredients:
1 C coconut oil
1 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 C Almond butter (mine is the Kroger brand and it is already sweetened)
2 C flour (her recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups but I thought that would make them a little too dry)
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/2 t sea salt (I used coarse sea salt and it gave them a small salty bite with the sweet)

 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, cream coconut oil with the sugars, add eggs and vanilla blend, add almond butter and cream it all together, pour all of the remaining ingredients into the bowl and mix. I hate using two bowls so that is how I always mix my dry ingredients. Drop by rounded Tbs on an ungreased baking sheet and smash with a fork in a criss-cross pattern (just like regular peanut butter cookies). Bake for 8-10 minutes, 12 minutes in my oven would have been too long, you don't want them too dry or burned.

These cookies held up really well once they were allowed to cool for a minute, also their flavor developed better when they were cooled. Serve with a tall glass of cold milk and let that oven help heat your cold kitchen!

Recipe adapted from Cowgirl Chef peanut butter cookies