Chocolate Walnut Puddle Cookies

These deep, dark, chewy cookies just happen to also be gluten-free. While the recipe looks meringue-ish, they don’t come across as meringues at all. They’re packed with crunchy toasted nuts – try walnuts, pecans or a combination of both. They will spread quite a bit  – give them plenty of space on the sheet. Adapted from 101Cookbooks.com.

3 cups walnuts or pecans
4 cups icing sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
4 large egg whites
1 Tbsp. good vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.

Toast your walnuts or pecans, cool them and roughly chop them. In a large bowl, stir together the icing sugar, cocoa and salt. Add the nuts, then stir in the egg whites and vanilla. Stir until well combined.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and drop the batter in large mounds (about 2 Tbsp. each – I used a heaped soup spoon) spacing them well away from each other – no more than 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes – they will spread, puff, crack on top, get glossy and then turn matte. Slide the cookies on the parchment off the sheet onto a cooling rack and let them cool.

Makes 18 large cookies.