coconut flour shortbread cookies

I was at the library this weekend.  I was browsing the cookbooks, as usual, and came across a Paleo diet cookbook.  I decided to leaf through it, since most of the recipes were high protein and that's what I'm looking for.  I came across a recipe for coconut pancakes made with coconut flour and coconut milk.  They looked pretty good and seemed easy to make, just like regular pancakes.  I didn't feel like checking the book out, so I went home and Googled for the recipe. But first I stopped at Ocean State Job Lot to get some Bob's Red Mill Coconut Flour; Ocean State Job Lot sells a big variety of Bob's Red Mill products.

I found a whole bunch of coconut pancake recipes online.  I clicked on one from a blog called Paleo Hacks.  That lead me to a post called 33 Indulgent Coconut Flour Recipes.  I clicked through and found a whole bunch of fairly simple recipes using coconut flour, one of which was these Coconut Flour Shortbread Cookies.  The recipe had only 4 ingredients, 5 if you count the optional chocolate. I decided to make these cookies.  I figured they're low in sugar and lower in carbs.  And the recipe makes only 8 small cookies, which is good; I don't want the temptation around for long.

These were very easy to mix together and it only took about 5 minutes, which includes the time it took to gather the ingredients, preheat the oven, and mix the dough.  It took a couple more minutes to roll the dough into balls and flatten with a fork. Note:  make sure you use cooking spray on the fork, otherwise the dough will stick.  Alternatively, you could just flatten them with your thumb.

The recipe called for maple syrup, but since I only needed one tablespoon I didn't want to spend a ton on real syrup.  I used pancake syrup instead.

These cookies were good, but not sweet at all.  I think they would benefit from a little sugar sprinkled on the top, or the optional chocolate drizzled over the top.  I don't know how to describe the taste.  I didn't necessarily taste the syrup or the coconut flour by themselves, although there was a hint of both.  And they also don't taste like regular shortbread cookies.  Also, while they were soft, they were a bit dry; I found myself needing a sip of water to wash each one down.

I would make them again, because they're just so easy, but I might use something else in place of the maple syrup. Maybe honey or sugar free Torani syrup.

Here's the recipe if you're interested in trying them:  Coconut Flour Shortbread Cookies.

Nutritional info, using regular pancake syrup and no chocolate:  73 calories, 6g fat, 1g sugar, 4g carbs and 1g protein per cookie.