Food Recipes Desserts Cookies Chewy, Fudgy Almond Butter and Palm Sugar Cookies Be the first to rate & review! They’re caramel-rich and almost chocolaty — without containing any chocolate. By Scott Mowbray Scott Mowbray Scott Mowbray is an editor and writer, and the former editor of Cooking Light and Eating Well. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Published on January 3, 2024 Rate PRINT Share Trending Videos Photo: Christopher Testani / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen Active Time: 20 mins Total Time: 2 hrs 30 mins Yield: 2 1/2 dozen These cookies are modeled after the unbelievably good, incredibly easy salted peanut butter cookies recipe from New York City’s Ovenly bakery. We’ve changed up the five ingredients, fiddling with ratios to showcase the intense deep-caramel and almost tangy deliciousness of palm sugar and the natural sweetness of almond butter. The almond butter cookies are chewy and fudgy, with bits of crunch around the edges from nuggets of melted pooled sugar, naturally gluten-free, and almost chocolaty — without containing any chocolate! This recipe comes from The Global Pantry Cookbook by Ann Taylor Pittman and Scott Mowbray. Frequently asked questions What is palm sugar? This intense, richly flavored, deeply caramel, crumbly, tangy sugar hails from Southeast Asia. Many Southeast Asian palm tree sugars are pale in color and mild in taste. This recipe calls for gula jawa from Indonesia, which is dark in color and brings a caramelized sweetness to the four ingredient dough. For this recipe, look for gula jawa (also labeled palm sugar, coconut sugar, or gula merah) that is dark brown with a moist, crumbly texture and made in Indonesia. Find it at Asian grocery stores or online. Our testers had the best results with Intra brand gula jawa from Umami Cart. How else can I use palm sugar? This unique sugar can be enjoyed in many ways, such as: Stir small chunks into half-thawed vanilla ice cream and refreeze. Sprinkle it into cookie dough, or use in place of brown sugar for a streusel. Microplane the hardened sugar onto oatmeal or grits, or melt to make a powerful syrup. Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen The key to these cookies is getting the sugar to the right texture — if the bits are too large, they’ll compromise the structural integrity of the cookies and you’ll end up with hole-y cookies, but if it’s completely dissolved, then you won’t get the crispy/caramelized sugar pools on the edges of the cookies. Aim for having lots of tiny chunks in the dough: about 1/8-inch to maximum of 1/4 inches in size. Ingredients 12 ounces gula jawa (Indonesian palm sugar) 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups smooth almond butter Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling Directions Crumble gula jawa into a large bowl. (If it’s too firm to crumble by hand, place on a cutting board, and chop into fine pieces, or process in a food processor until finely chopped.) Whisk in eggs and vanilla until mostly smooth with a few sugary lumps. Stir in almond butter until well combined. (Mixture should look like thick brownie batter with bits of sugar in it.) Cover and refrigerate dough until firm and thickened to a scoopable consistency, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350°F during final 20 minutes of chilling. Scoop about 10 dough balls (1 1/2 tablespoons each) onto a parchment paper–lined baking sheet, spacing at least 2 inches apart. Generously sprinkle top of each dough ball with salt. Bake in preheated oven until edges are set and lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Let cookies cool on baking sheet 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack. Repeat process twice with remaining dough and salt. Let cookies cool completely, about 1 hour. Originally appeared in Food & Wine magazine, December 2023 / January 2024 Rate It Print