These Flourless Almond Cookies from Spain are almost too good to be true. They're gluten free, dairy free, and they take just 4 ingredients and 25 minutes to make. And they're totally delicious.
Cooking Light has a terrific cookbook called Global Kitchen
. The book is filled with healthy and delicious recipes from all around the world - a book after my own heart! As I paged through, these flourless Spanish almond cookies caught my eye.
I have to admit that the first thing that attracted me to them was how healthy they are. There's no butter or flour - they're made mostly from almonds.
They bake up crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, with a fresh nutty flavor and a hint of lemon.
Spain is one of the worlds largest almond producing countries and desserts made with almond flour are common.
Almond flour is simply blanched almonds, with the brown skin removed, that are finely ground.
Once you grind the almonds for 20 seconds or so, add the egg, sugar, lemon zest and salt, and pulse until you get a sticky dough.
These flourless almond cookies are also great if you happen to be eating gluten free, dairy free, or if you're looking for a sweet treat for Passover.
I hope you enjoy the cookies! For more delicious, lightened-up recipes from around the world, here's the link to Cooking Light Global Kitchen on Amazon.
For more delicious varieties of flourless almond cookies, check out my post: A Trio of Flourless Almond Cookies
Now here's the recipe for Flourless Almond Cookies from Spain. If you try this recipe I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and comment. I'd love to know what you think!
PrintFlourless Almond Cookies from Spain
Delicious crunchy nutty almond cookies that are made mostly from healthy almonds. Naturally gluten free and dairy free.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 16 mins
- Total Time: 26 mins
- Yield: 24 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients
- 2 cups blanched slivered almonds
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- Zest from 1 lemon
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 24 roasted salted almonds to top cookies (or use any type of almond you like)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly oil a baking sheet.
- Put almonds in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the chopping blade. Process for 15-20 seconds or until they are finely ground. Add the sugar, egg, lemon and salt to the bowl of the food processor and pulse 20-25 times, until the mixture becomes sticky and holds together.
- Make 24 dough balls. Pull out about a tablespoon of dough at a time. Squeeze it and roll it. Spread balls out evenly on prepared baking sheet. Press a whole roasted almond down into each cookie. Bake in the center of the oven for 16 minutes. Cool cookies on pan for 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Keywords: almond cookies, gluten free cookies
Keeping it as a favourite. The outside is crunchy like a dry amaretti and the inside is like the moist ones. Love!
★★★★★
How can I substitute honey for sugar in this recipe?
Hi Daria, I am not an expert on this but I found an article that will help https://www.thekitchn.com/4-rules-for-successfully-swapping-honey-for-sugar-in-any-baked-goods-230156
Best of luck with the cookies!
I started with 2-1/4 cups almond flour which made it even quicker without having to use the food processor. I rolled the balls in sliced almonds (because that's what I had) before flattening and dusted a wee bit of powdered sugar on top as they cooled. They were delicious and really pretty too, these pups are gonna be my new go to for giving as gifts to my gluten free friends and will forever get a star role on my Passover table with a thumbprint of jam in place of the almond decor (liberation from stodgy potato starch cakes)!
★★★★★
I'm so glad you like the cookies! Thanks for sharing your process - I love your modifications!
Can the almond flour be substituted with hazelnut flour?
I think these will bake well with hazelnut flour, but I'm not sure how they will taste. Almond flour has a strong, nutty flavor with more savory flavors than hazelnut flour, which is sweeter and mellower. If you try this recipe with hazelnut flour, I'd love to know how the cookies turn out.
I made them last year with hazelnut as I am allergic to almonds. I loved them! Making them again this year
Delicious! For any British people, I used 200g ground almonds, 150g caster sugar, and a medium egg, and mixed it with an electric whisk.
★★★★★
Hi Liza,
If I use the whole almond, how many cup I should use for your recipe?
Does the dough freeze well? I am going to try to make with monk fruit sweetener.
★★★★★
Hi Joni, I've never tried to freeze the dough. I'm guessing you'd be better off baking the cookies and freezing them rather than freezing the uncooked dough. If you end up trying it, I'd love to know how they turn out.
Love the recipe. How much 2 cups of sliver almond give in ground almond? Also may I trade in xylitol for the sugar?
Thanks
★★★★★
I haven't tried this recipe using xylitol but I assume it would work well being that xylitol and sugar have about the same degree of sweetness. If you try it, I'd love to know what you think.
As for the almonds, 2 cups of almond flour should work well. Enjoy!
Use 2 1/2 cups of almond flour for the 2 cups of slivered almonds.
These look delicious and so simple! If I already have almond flour, how much would I use? In other words, how much ground almond does the 2 cups of slivered almonds generate? Thanks!
★★★★★
This was a really delicious recipe and was great for my school project.
not sure who stole this recipes from whom, but in south Italy they've been making this almond cookies since the dawn of times xD
It doesn't matter I am sure cos either way the important thing is to make the world know this fantastic recipe!:)
I love these cookie and I bake tons of them each time, almond is my favourite!:) I find that adding a tiny bit of almond essence boosts up the flavour.
Super delicious cookies and great post:)
FANTASTIC RECIPE!!! I made 2 batches this weekend for a Spanish themed village event, and after my husband eating most of those I made another 3 batches! I tried a little bit of one and it was INCREDIBLE!! My body doesn't handle sugar well so was wondering if anyone had tried making using sweetener (and successfully made them not have the awful sweetener taste!) Any suggestions welcomed before I start experimenting!
These are fantastic! easy to make and loaded with a great almond flavor
★★★★★
I'm glad you enjoyed them!
Fantastic AND easy!!! I ended up making a second batch of these yesterday only a few hours after the first because we ate too many--and needed more to bring to our hostess last night!
★★★★★
I love the Global Kitchen cookbook and I LOVE these cookies! this is a childhood favorite, I need to make soon...
Can you tell me how much almond flour is required (instead of grinding almonds myself)
Maggie, the recipe calls for 2 cups of slivered almonds, which is 8 ounces. 8 ounces of almond flour is about 2 1/4 cups.
My apologies to the poster of the recipe (Lisa) for the so-called humans who have posted the really stupid and self-centred (almost pathologically so) replies about choc-chip and shortbread. Your recipe sounds nice and I am going to try it, using Stevia instead of sugar (diabetic).
Thanks Nick. I hope you enjoy!
This is an awesome recipe. I've tried it with a number of variations--my favorite so far being adding 2 tbs fennel seed.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks Ben. I love the idea of the fennel!
You saved my day!! After a disastrous lemon cake failure I needed a replacement recipe just hours before a party. I whipped these up in a hurry, using almond meal instead of slivered almonds (it was all I had in the pantry) and they came out just perfectly. I put a dollop of the leftover lemon icing from the ill-fated cake into the middle of the cookie instead of the whole almond, and it worked a treat.
Thanks for sharing this simple, delicious cookie. I'll be bookmarking it for another event!
Wow,Erika - so great that you were able to pull off a successful dessert in such a short time! I love the idea of the lemon icing in the middle of the almond cookies!! 🙂
Great recipe, cute little cookies. I am going to put in more lemon rind, and less sugar next time. Thank you very much for your low fat recipe.
Kerry
Thanks for the giveaway… we are on a continuing quest to tweak our oatmeal-coconut-pumpkin cookie recipe.
My favorite cookie recipe is a chocolate chip cookie with a secret ingredient: molasses! Yum.
my favorite cookies are snickerdoodles!
Trying to enter the cookbook giveaway but all its been doing is loading for the last 15 min. Tried twice. Says there are still five hours before contest closes. Oh well
I am an old-fashioned Chocolate Chip Cookie gal!
I love homemade choc chip cookies and you can actually make them a bit healthier by adding pumpkin instead of the eggs 🙂 comes out very moist thanks
I do not have any healthy recipes to share but I love peanut butter cookies. THank you
I love pizzelles.
My favorite cookies are sugar cookies. I have begun to make them with honey instead of white sugar to be a little healthier.
I love shortbread cookies and they are not really healthy and I feel if I am going to eat a treat it should be a good one.
I like Oatmeal and Raisin cookies as well as gingersnaps and sugar cookies. I can't think of a particularly healthy cookie right off ....
my fav cookies are snickerdoodles!
Maybe not the healthiest cookie but we love Oatmeal Raisin
I love shortbread cookies made from real butter. I was quite intrigued with this recipe because it's flourless. And the 'from Spain' entices me too. A little teeny mini-vacation---
My favorite cookies are my own recipe for oatmeal cookies with diced dried apricots, dried cranberries and toasted pecans.
love my oatmeal cookies, just halve the sugar in recipe.
toooo many favorite cookies. They're the easiest things to make for last minute company! I like these almond pillow cookies that are made with almond paste (yum). I also like just making brown sugar cookies with walnuts- basically chocolate chips minus the chips. And i sub in half whole wheat flour/half almond flour instead of all purpose, and switch out the white sugar for honey
lOVE this for my glutten free hubby
Can you use almond meal instead of grinding up almonds?
Yes! Almond meal, almond flour and ground almonds are all the same. Check the ingredients on your bag of almond meal to make sure, but the almond meal I've used, such as Bob's Red Mill, are simply ground almonds.
How much almond meal would you use? 1 Cup?
I would use 1 3/4 cups almond meal.
Thank you that is what I was looking for. Going to start straight away- have lunch with friends, need something nice! Lost my own recipe whilst moving house.
I love these cream cheese cookies my mom makes that are filled with cherry preserves and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
I make my daughtet oatmeal "cookies" with just a couple of ingredients: Oats, banana and raisins, almonds or chocolate chips mix them all up, drop them into the oven and then bake. super healthy and delish for a 4 year old, and better than from a box or bag 🙂
I love my mom's chocolate chip cookies!!!! Classic and hard to beat with a glass of ice cold milk!
These look wonderful! They sound like just the thing for my son-in-law. They don't sound too sweet either. I already subscribe to your post via email, and I don't do tweets, Pinterest, etc. I don't see how to enter your contest by just commenting.
I have made several of your recipes, and can't wait to try the pain au chocolat. I went to Trader Joe's to buy the puff pastry and they only carry it during the holidays, so I'll have to go to another store to get some.
Thanks for your intriguing recipes.
Hi Eileen, I just added a "leave a comment" option for entering the contest. Thanks for your kind words and I really appreciate your suggestion regarding the contest. Lisa
AND Gluten free!!! Awesome:))