Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies are a MUST any time of year! Pumpkin and spices add rich earthy flavor to Chocolate Chip Cookies. Free of gluten, grains and glycemic sweeteners, these cookies can’t spike blood sugar or bring added pounds, if you use one of the suggested natural non-glycemic sweeteners. Even better, this recipe uses unsweetened 100% chocolate chips! Hooray! The problem with chocolate chips is that most are loaded with sugar. Yucch! Even dark chocolate is legally anywhere from 35% to 70% cacao, which means the rest is 30% to 65% sugar. Eeek! Since all sugars are dangerously destabilizing for the metabolism, I buy Pascha 100% Cacao Organic Dark Chocolate Baking Chips Unsweetened at my local health food store. Or you can find them online at Vitacost.com. Woo hoo! The Paleo diet is sugar-free, organic, GMO-free, and so are Pascha chocolate chips. If you don’t find Pascha chips, you can substitute unsweetened cacao nibs. BTW – I suggest you keep the chocolate chips in the freezer until you’re ready to add them at the last minute. Then press the cold chips in towards the center of the dough ball so they stay intact and don’t melt away during baking. Enjoy these cookies! Makes about 60 cookies.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup pumpkin or squash pulp (100 grams) cooked and well drained. (if mixing by hand, mashed)
- 1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups Just Like Sugar Brown natural chicory root sweetener, or 5 1/3 tablespoons PureLo Lo Han Sweetener by Swanson, or 1 1/2 cups raw honey, or your favorite sweetener.
- 1 cup coconut butter, 227 grams. (If mixing by hand, soften it first by placing the container in a lukewarm water bath.)
- 1 cup almond meal or flour
- 3 tablespoons arrowroot flour
- 1/2 teaspoon unprocessed salt
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped nuts, soaked and toasted if possible (See All About Nuts)
- 1 cup frozen Pascha 100% Cacao Organic Dark Chocolate Baking Chips Unsweetened. Leave chips in the freezer until you add them.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In a food processor or mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients: eggs, pumpkin, maple, vanilla, sweetener. Mix well to liquefy completely. Add coconut butter and mix well again until smooth.
- To the ingredients in the food processor, add the dry ingredients: almond meal, arrowroot, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix well. If the dough starts to fall apart, add a bit more arrowroot or almond meal until the dough is fairly cohesive. Pulse in the chopped nuts very briefly so they’re in large pieces.
- Place the dough in a bowl and chill to firm up for about 15 minutes, no longer, or it will be hard to stir in the chips. Then remove from the refrigerator and stir in the frozen chips. You may need to use your hands for this. Spoon 1-inch rounds on the cookie sheets. These cookies don't spread, so you can space them quite close. Grease your palms with coconut oil and press them flat with your hands. Try to place the chips on the insides of the cookies, so they don't melt all over the tray.
- Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until just barely brown on the edges. Remove from the oven, let cool on the pan, and enjoy!
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