Chocolate Almond Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients:
• 2 cups Just Like Sugar Table Top natural chicory root sweetener, or 5 1/3 tablespoons PureLo Lo Han Sweetener by Swanson|http://www.swansonvitamins.com/swanson-premium-purelo-lo-han-sweetener-monk-fruit-7-oz-200-grams-pwdr], or 1 1/2 cups raw honey, or your favorite sweetener.
• 1 1/4 cups medium shredded unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup arrowroot flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional for a buttery flavor)
• 3/4 teaspoon unprocessed salt (or less if your nut butter is salted)
• 5 tablespoons pure cacao powder
Wet Ingredients:
• 2 large eggs, pastured, organic if possible
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 inches fresh ginger root, diced (about 40 grams)
• 2 tablespoons raw Yacon syrup (optional for a molasses taste)
• Zest of one orange
Mix in last:
• 1 cup roasted almond butter (I suggest smooth)
Garnish:
• 80 whole almonds, soaked and crisped if possible. (See All About Nuts.)

Instructions

1. Line three cookie sheets with parchment paper. Prepare 2 more pieces of parchment paper the same size for wrapping the dough into logs.
2. In a dry food processor fitted with the “S” blade, grind the sweetener to a very fine powder.
3. Add the shredded coconut to the sweetener in the food processor. Spin it for a minute until a very fine powder. Open the lid, stir the bottom, replace the lid, and grind again until the powder is uniformly fine.
4. To the ingredients in the food processor, add the arrowroot, baking powder, nutritional yeast (if using), salt, and cacao. Mix well. Then dump the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
5. In any blender, (a small blender is fine too) add the eggs, vanilla, ginger, and yacón syrup (if using), and orange zest. Mix well until ginger is liquefied. The blender helps to grind the fresh ginger. Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl.
6. Add almond butter to the mixing bowl. Stir all ingredients together with a large wooden spoon or stiff rubber scraper until the dough is completely mixed. It will be quite stiff.
7. Divide the dough in 2 equal parts, and place each part on a piece of parchment paper. Shape them into 2 logs about 13 inches long and 2 1/2 inches thick. Wrap the 2 logs as tightly as possible, folding the paper in at the ends to make a nice cylinder shape all the way to the end. Freeze overnight. Freeze a cutting board too.
Bake the cookies:
8. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Remove one cookie log and the cutting board from the freezer. Unwrap the dough and place on the cutting board. Cut the frozen dough with a serrated knife into 1/8 to 1/4-inch thin cookies, placing them on the parchment covered baking trays. They do not spread much, so 1/4 to 1/2-inch space between the cookies is enough. Do not touch the dough with your hands or the dough will begin to melt. I hold the log with a folded wad of parchment paper to avoid touching the dough.
9. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes. After 4 minutes, remove the tray from the oven and gently press an almond into the soft center of the dough. Then replace the tray in the oven as quickly as possible and finish baking.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for the 2nd log. Keep your eyes on the timer and take care as these cookies do not brown, and therefore it is a tendency to over-bake, in which case they will be TOO CRISP! (Is it possible for a ginger snap to be too crisp?) When they’re done, they’ll be soft and they’ll get crispier as they cool. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Enjoy!