The cookie vs the cookie dough. Tough decision

Halloween. The demon word for diabetics. I get to dole out candy to about 100 little ghouls, princesses, warlocks, space invaders... everyone but me. I was going to make my own Almond Joys... and I could... but I totally spaced it off and didn't have the almonds. Please... Almond Joys without Almonds? Might as well have a Mounds. If you're finished snickering.... again, it's Halloween and candy is just everywhere. Even my fingers can't help typing those nasty words.

So I thought what can I do? I need something to get me through. I need a fix. I need... cookies. but finding a cookie recipe made with Almond Flour is nearly impossible... unless you can use chocolate chips. Would someone please explain the purpose of using Almond Flour for a low carb healthy grain free cookie and throwing commercial chocolate chips in????

So for no apparent reason, though I can conjure up a few paranormal explanations, my grandmother's love affair with Pecan Sandies popped into my brain. She was an absolute addict. She'd send us to the store at any given moment with some lame excuse... and as we were headed out the door she'd call out "bring me back some of those Pecan cookies I like so much" as if it were an afterthought. Hardly. We were so onto her. But it's ok. We would have done just about anything she asked.

So I wondered how I could make something like that. Using Almond Flour and Swerve... so I just went with my gut. Let's backtrack shall we? I have no culinary training except as it applies to raising kids and learning to throw things together out of necessity. As in OMG I have to get them to stop whining! 

That being said, I thought I can do this. So I created a Halloween Pecan Cookie. Well, maybe not. Turns out I did a few things right and a few things terribly wrong. What I did right created the most delicious cookie dough ever. Seriously. Since there was no egg... it was wonderfully edible raw. I could have eaten all of it just that way.

Edible Cookie Dough

But in my culinary naivety, I thought the cookie baked will be even better. Um not quite. Good, yes. Hubby compared it to a snickerdoodle... without the cinnamon. I personally have never had one. I didn't grow up with snickerdoodles. Or my family hid them from me.

So they are good cookies. Yes. But better if you wait until the next day. These definitely follow the almond flour rule of refrigerate overnight and the yum factor goes way up. Or if you're like me, they may never make it into the oven.

Baked Cookie Dough

Recipe:

1 cupped chopped pecans

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Swerve granular

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Mix together the pecans, flour and baking soda and set aside

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and swerve until smooth. Slowly add in the remaining dry ingredients until your dough is soft and well blended. Take a bite. Seriously, grab a spoon because it's really good.

Drop in spoonfuls on a parchment lined cookie tray and flatten each mound with the back of a spoon. Bake at 325 for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on tray, then transfer to a cooling rack. The cookies will be very soft when warm and firm up as they cool. Refrigerate when cool overnight for best results!