A. B. C. Should I continue with D, E, and F?

Dense, Easy, Flourless. WOW that went down well. I swore that would take longer than expected.

I never meant to do it– promise. This Almond Butter Cookie action (hopefully the acronym stuck the first time you read it) pounced on me instead of the other way round. People have things for things, and my thing yesterday morning was almond butter. I eased a dribble down a side of toast, drizzled on some honey, then some course sea salt. It’s easy to contemplate life over breakfast. Almond butter honey toast is magical. Why not turn your jar into a batch of bloody easy cookies?

The very next morning, I decided to have one for myself with some newly bought macadamia butter (yes! It’s real!), raspberry jam, and more chopped almonds. Exquisite. Sometimes simplicity is key, but the lavish combination didn’t hurt this aching almond affinity.

I’ll give you just a line: Dense, chewy, buttery (in the most nourishing sense). These cookies are slightly crumbly due to the natural texture of raw almond butter, hence putting it just a rung up on the fragility ladder, but the lovely squidgy interior of slight under-doneness, packed with lush, nutty almond flavour, makes this one bowl affair way worth it. Alright. A couple of notes on this jazzed up loveliness:

– once the cookies are baked, leave them! For a half hour or so before touching. They are soft and rather fragile once out of the oven, so you don’t want to fiddle with them too much.

– use raw, natural almond butter, and make sure that all the natural oil (which usually rests on top of the more solid mass of almond butter in the jar) is thoroughly mixed in, using a knife or spoon.

– you may add whatever you like after getting the base recipe straight, be it chocolate chips and almonds (as in my case), or perhaps crushed biscuits (?) and sea salt. The versatility of a cookie is something to herald and marvel at. It’s pretty impossible to exhaust all possibilities and combinations..

Almond Butter Cookies (flourless, makes around 16 medium cookies)

Ingredients

1 cup almond butter

1 teaspoon fine salt

75g white caster sugar

65g soft, light brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

Optional: half a cup of chocolate chips/ nuts/ crushed biscuits

Preheat your oven to 177C (350F), and line and grease 2 cookie sheets. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients listed above (yes, in that order, if you wish). Using 2 tablespoons, spoon a tablespoonful of mixture onto the cookie sheet(s), each circle of batter placed at least an inch apart from each other. There is no need to flatten the cookies as they will spread out on their own during the baking process; they should be slightly flattened balls of almond buttery goodness on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 9-11 minutes. Mine were done by 9 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least a half hour before touching, and then serve with glee.