Chocolate Vanilla Pinwheel Cookies (Gluten-free and Paleo)

My dad taught me to make pinwheel cookies when I was young. We'd make checkerboard cookies too, the same contrast between vanilla and chocolate shortbread dough, but shaped into squares with a checkerboard pattern. 

I revamped this recipe to use almond flour, and the result was soft, chewy and delicious. The chocolate dough is my favorite of the two (go figure), but swirled together the chocolate and vanilla make a perfect pair. They say opposites attract or something, I guess it's true! 

Having made pinwheel cookies dozens of times, I thought this might be a good opportunity to test my skills at making a how-to video of how to roll up the cookies and make a swirl. Well. I think I need to work on my videography skills: I wasn't even 20 seconds in to recording when I realized I had no idea where the rolling pin was, or where I had decided to store it in the new kitchen. I left the camera rolling for a good 5 minutes while I rushed from cupboard to cupboard trying to find it. 

The errors didn't end there and let's just jump to the end of the story because there's no video to share. Cleary I'm going to need to take on a class on videography before I try to make any recipes videos! 😂

Chocolate Vanilla Pinwheel Cookies (Gluten-free and Paleo)

Paleo, Primal, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free    |   Caitlin Sherwood    

Chocolate dough and vanilla dough are layered and then rolled into a log before being sliced into rounds to create a pretty chocolate vanilla pinwheel.

Yields: 12   |    Total Time: 60 minutes

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Ingredients:

• 2 cups almond flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup coconut oil or butter, melted
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• Scant 1/4 cup cocoa

Directions:

1. First, make the vanilla dough: Whisk together HALF each of the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Then, pour in HALF each of the melted butter, melted honey, and vanilla. Use your hands or a spatula to stir until a sticky, even dough is formed. Roll into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Place in fridge.
2. Second, make the chocolate dough: Whisk together the remaining almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Add in the cocoa, whisking in. Then, pour in the remaining melted butter, melted honey, and vanilla. Again, use a spatula or your hands to work into a sticky dough. Roll into a ball and wrap in saran wrap.
3. Allow both dough balls to chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 325°. Prepare your work station: Place 1 sheet of parchment paper on the counter (18 inches long should be sufficient), and then cut two additional pieces of the same size.
5. Unwrap the vanilla dough from the saran wrap and place on the first piece of parchment on the counter. Place the second piece of parchment over top, and begin to roll out the dough to a 1/8 of an inch thick. The parchment keeps the dough from sticking while you roll it out.
6. Once the dough is in an even, thin layer, peel back the top layer of parchment. Leaving the dough on the bottom piece, move it aside (carefully). Place the third piece of parchment in front of you place the chocolate dough ball on it. Place the free piece of parchment over top and roll the dough out just the same. Once rolled, peel back the top layer.
7. Now, move carefully: lift one of the rolled out pieces of dough (still attached to the parchment) and place it dough-side down against the other flavor of dough. You should now have a parchment dough sandwich: parchment, chocolate dough, vanilla dough, parchment. Peel off the top piece of parchment.
8. Working from one edge of the dough, begin rolling both layers together into a log. I like to lift the parchment with the dough as a roll it (then pulling it back so as not to roll it into the cookie) in order to keep the dough from crumbing or cracking. Make the log tight, shopping it as you roll by gently squeezing it. Once the entire log is rolled up, us a piece of thread (or floss) to cut off the first inch of the log by holding on to the two ends, left and right and pulling the floss down through the log (the ends of the log of dough is usually uneven and does not have a great swirl— you can still bake and eat it, it just won’t be as pretty). Use the floss again to slice each cookie, about 1/4 of an inch thick. Place each sliced cookie round on a baking sheet.
9. Bake for 9 minutes, until just golden. Allow to cool for at least 5 minutes.

Grain-Free Gingerbread Men

Holidays were sweet at my Mom's house--between the occasional sweet bread and a few biscotti, there was always a pile of sugar cookies, which we would decorate one by one with softly colored icing and plenty of sprinkles. 

Prompted by the holiday carols on the radio and the snow outside, I've been thinking about holiday cookies a lot lately. Is there anything sweeter than an afternoon inside, decorating cookies while humming little songs? 

These cookies are crispy and snappy. They're full of warm gingerbread spices, which makes them perfect for dipping in a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. Best of all, they'll fill any craving for holiday sweets or cookie decorating afternoons. 

While there are a lot of frosting recipes out there, and quite few recipes for Paleo Royal Icing, I actually just decorated these with straight coconut butter. It's simple, it's easy, and it's super creamy. Coconut butter on a spoon? Yuum! Coconut butter on a cookie? Double yum! Personally, I find the cookies sweet enough. If you want to decorate these cookies with something more traditional, go for it! To be totally honest: plenty of these cookies were eaten before they finished cooling down, which means they never got frosted at all! Oops. 

One last totally honest tidbit: one year I dressed up as a gingerbread man for Halloween. My parents had to talk me out of eating my candy buttons before the 31st. I couldn't have been any older than 5, what could you expect? #EmbarrassingMoments. 

Grain-Free Gingerbread Men

Paleo, Primal, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free    |   Caitlin Sherwood    

Thin and crispy, these gingerbread men have all of the snap of the traditional cookie.

Yields: 24   |    Total Time: 30 active minutes

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Ingredients:

• 1-3/4 cups almond flour
• 1/4 cup arrowroot powder, plus extra for rolling out cookies
• Pinch salt
• 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil
• 1/3 cup coconut sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup coconut butter

Directions:

1. In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients (flour, arrowroot, baking soda, salt, spices, sugar).
2. When dry ingredients are well combined, add the butter/coconut oil to the food processor. Pulse several times, until butter is incorporated but not fully mixed in. Add the egg, and then continue to pulse until dough comes together into a sticky ball.
3. Remove dough from food processor. Roll into a ball and then flatten into a disk shape. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge for 30 minutes.
4. When ready to bake cookies, preheat over to 350°F. Cut two pieces of parchment paper the size of your cookie sheet. Sprinkle one piece with arrowroot powder. Take dough out of the fridge, and unwrap. Place dough on piece of parchment paper, and sprinkle with more arrowroot powder — just a small amount, it keeps the dough from sticking too much. Place the second piece of parchment on top, and then use a rolling pin to roll dough out to a 1/4 of an inch thick. Peel off top parchment paper carefully. Now, using cookie cutters, cut cookie shapes about 1/2 inch apart from each other. I use the reverse cookie-cutting method to make my cookies, because this dough is fragile: Use cookie cutters, and then remove the excess bits (i.e., don’t try to move the cookies them selves) from the parchment. Then, transfer entire sheet of parchment paper to cookie sheet and bake until cookies are puffy and golden — 6-8 minutes. Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before moving to a cooling rack. Repeat this process until the dough has been used!
5. Once cookies are completely cool, melt the coconut butter. Spoon melted coconut butter into a frosting bag fitted with a fine frosting tip, and decorate cookies as desired.

Note: as coconut butter melts in warmed temperatures (around 76°F degrees, you may need to keep decorated cookies in the fridge. This will depend on how warm you keep your house (mine is much lower than 76°F, so I keep them on my counter top in an airtight container.

Paleo Double Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti

If you haven't noticed, I'm a complete chocoholic. Lots of people say they're chocoholics, but what they mean is that they really like chocolate and get a hankering for chocolate cake every now and then.

Last night over dinner I admitted to having visited two chocolate museums and a chocolate factory. I didn't realize that was such a shocking figure--doesn't everyone re-organize their schedule once learning that they're within an hours drive of a chocolate museum? And who hasn’t read four books about the history of chocolate?

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I also chose not to disclose these figures with my classmates last semester, when I got to do a case study on Chocolates El Rey, a premium brand of chocolate out of Venezuela. When I was able to list the retail prices of several El Rey competitors off the top of my head during my class presentation, I admitted to being a chocoholic. My classmates chuckled, but only because they didn't realize how true it actually was. 

If you understand how a real chocoholic's mind works, you probably understand why I had to make these Double Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti almost immediately after making these Paleo Gingerbread Biscotti. It goes something like this: These are crazy good. Just one thing... I'll fill the batter with cocoa and stuff them with chocolate chips! And then I'll really be in love. Sure enough, taking my biscotti recipe and converting it into a chocolate lover's dream really was a genius move. 

Note: These biscotti are not as hard as a traditional biscotti. They retain a little bit more softness, due to the almond flour and the chocolate chunks. I prefer it that way, they still dip into tea and coffee beautifully, but don’t hurt your teeth!

Paleo Double Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti

Published January 12, 2014 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 12   |    Active Time: 1 hour

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Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour

1/4 cup arrowroot powder or tapioca starch

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1/3 cup chocolate chunks or chips, plus 2 tablespoons for drizzle on top

1/3 cup shelled unsalted pistachios

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together almond flour, coconut flour, arrowroot powder, salt, baking soda and cocoa.
2. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and honey. Fold the wet mixture into the dry. You may need to use a spatula to really work the dough together (or your hands!). Fold in the chocolate chips and pistachios.
3. Shape the dough into a rectangle (about 1 inch tall, 3 inches wide, and 10 inches long) and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or a sil-pat. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
4. Use a serrated knife to carefully cut the rectangle into strips, 1/2 to 1-inch thick, forming the biscotti. Lay each strip back on the cookie sheet cut side up. Reduce oven to 300°F and bake for 20-30 more minutes, until the cookies begin to turn crisp.
5. Remove from oven, and allow to cool completely.
6. Optional: Melt remaining 2 tablespoons chocolate chips, and drizzle over each cookie for decoration.