Orange Cream Cookies

These originally came from Dr. William Davis' recipe.  I used to love Dreamsicles as a kid, especially the orange ones.  That flavor combo of orange and vanilla cream was just so yummy!  So this had an immediate appeal to me.  Check Dr. Davis' blogs, both the Heart Scan Blog and His Wheat Belly Blog about Herbicide-Resistant Wheat and what it has done to America's health.  For myself, all of my health problems certainly did not clear up when eliminating wheat, but my nose did. I found I'm allergic to it, even to the smell of it. In fact if I smell wheat bread, or even the playdough I play with with the preschoolers I work with, it has an immediate effect on me. I get sinus inflammation.  It may be affecting me in other ways I have no knowledge of, but that is one way that I've seen a definite improvement.  I didn't lose weight after getting off it, and I didn't have an energy surge, and I didn't get rid of my IBS, but at least I got rid of the life-long constant sinus inflammation that robbed me of sleep every night!  Yay for that!  I'm totally enjoying my wheat free way of life, and not feeling deprived, and recipes like this help tremendously in making life feel more "normal"--whatever that is.  

You can click the link to Dr. Davis' original recipe for his.  Mine has a few improvisations, (as always--I never seem to follow anyone's recipe exactly), mainly because I didn't want to run to the store so used what I had on hand.  I didn't make that many changes though, and these turned out great.  Mine needed less baking time (15 min.).  The first batch I over-baked.  I tend to like an almost under-done cookie.  I came out with 24 cookies.

The hardest part making these was not eating all the cookie dough!!  I actually think I liked the cookie dough the best, but then I always do.  I may make this some time just to eat the cookie dough.  Who knows?  I didn't have orange zest so I used orange extract.  I didn't have pecans so I used walnuts.  I also did not use the raisins, because I needed to lower the carb count.  What I wish I had done was to add some chocolate bits, that I just made yesterday, with it.  That would have been great!

So here's my version of Dr. Davis' Orange Cream Cookies...

ORANGE DREAM COOKIES                    

2 cups  almond flour
2 tablespoons  coconut flour
1 teaspoon  baking soda
1/2 teaspoon  sea salt
1/2 cup  chopped walnuts
Sweetener equivalent to 1 cup sugar (I used 12 packets Truvia, and liquid sucralose to equal 1/2 cup)
1 large  egg
1 teaspoon  orange extract
2 tablespoons  coconut oil -- melted
1/2 cup  heavy cream -- or coconut milk
1 tablespoon  vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Combine almond meal, coconut flour, baking soda, salt, walnuts, and sweetener  in bowl and mix.

In separate bowl, whisk egg, then add orange extract, coconut oil, whipping cream OR coconut milk, vanilla extract and mix together. Pour wet mix into dry and blend by hand thoroughly.

Spoon onto parchment paper-lined baking pan (or oiled pan) and flatten with spoon to 1/2 to 3/4-inch thickness. Bake for 20-25 minutes (mine took 15) or until toothpick withdraws dry.

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24 Cookies/Per Cookie: 103 Calories; 9g Fat (77.8% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber

My recipe--2 g net carbs per cookie