Soft Paleo Coconut Macadamia Nut Cookies made with coconut butter creating a delicious soft, chewy cookie packed with sweet coconut vanilla flavor crunchy macadamia nuts! Gluten free, grain free, dairy free, refined sugar free.
Coconut butter. If you haven’t experimented much with it yet – I’m giving you THESE COOKIES as your excuse to go wild! When I first did the Whole30, I quickly discovered coconut butter as a way to “jazz up” bowls of fruit or bananas – even without any added sugar it has a mildly sweet, delicious flavor and awesome texture. But beyond Whole30? This stuff gets even better – trust me!
I’m going to be honest with you – I miss those incredibly buttery, sweet white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. That said, white chocolate is not exactly Paleo and truthfully, in my old-ish age it’s just too sweet to be enjoyable. My 10 year old white-chocolate-guzzling self would be horrified, but things do change.
As it turns out, macadamia nuts themselves are pretty damn delicious in cookies. Or alone. Or (and especially!) with that coconut butter we were just chatting about. YES – the coconut butter. Let’s talk about baking with coconut butter right now since I have your attention.
Coconut butter is sort of interesting, in general. It can’t be replaced one-to-one with other “butters” like almond, cashew, sunflower, etc.
I’m not going to pretend I completely know why this is – my guess is that is “dries out” more than nut butters – whatever that means. Coconut butter is its own “thing” in my opinion and needs to be treated as the uniquely awesome butter that it is!
What I DO know is that it is VERY possible and rewarding to bake with – my coconut butter banana bread blew my mind – and the flavor and texture it adds is simply delicious regardless of how “Paleo” you typically roll with your cookies. Not to mention that there are no fancy tricks here with these cookies – they couldn’t be simpler to mix, drop and bake!
I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are TWO THINGS that I will never tire of (at least dessert-wise) – and those two things are cookies and ice cream. I would totally put those two foods at the top of my list for all-time favorites, right along with bacon and eggs.
The reason I’m telling you this, is because I can’t get through this post without letting you in on a secret – these cookies are good alone, BUT they are GOOD GOOD when paired with coconut vanilla ice cream. As in, I have actually given up my typical nighttime chocolate habit just to eat these cookies with vanilla ice cream, and, I am definitely not stopping anytime soon.
A bit more about the cookies before I leave to to bake. When stored at room temp, they’re nice and soft, a bit chewy and not at all crumbly. When chilled, they firm up and have sort of a chewy consistency – just picture the difference between soft, melty coconut butter and solid coconut butter.
Now, I took them a step further and put a few in the freezer, and of course they were firmer and crumbly – but perfect to crumble over ice cream or even fruit. Or both! You CANNOT go wrong with these cookies!
Soft Paleo Coconut Macadamia Nut Cookies
Soft Paleo Coconut Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk room temp
- 1/2 cup coconut butter melted and stirred*
- 1/4 cup organic coconut sugar
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup organic coconut flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour/starch
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped macadamia nuts
Instructions
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and one a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
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In a large bowl, whisk the egg and egg yolk by hand or with an electric mixer. Add the coconut sugar, maple syrup, coconut butter, and vanilla and mix until smooth and creamy.
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In a separate bowl, combine the coconut flour, tapioca flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until fully combined and a sticky cookie dough forms. Stir in the chopped nuts.
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Using a medium cookie scoop or Tbsp, spoon the cookie dough onto the baking sheet to make 12 cookies. Flatten each cookie by lightly pressing each ball of dough down to 1/2 inch thickness
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Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until just set. Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire racks to fully cool. Store leftover cookies in a covered container - at room temp they will be soft and chewy when chilled. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*Depending on how warm it is in your house/the season, your coconut butter might already be melted. If not, gently microwave 10 seconds at a time or run the jar under hot water until it has a creamy, stir-able consistency.
What I Used to Make My Paleo Coconut Macadamia Nut Cookies:
Want more Paleo cookie recipes? Try one of these!
Chewy Double Chocolate Tahini Cookies
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chewy Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Tell Me!
Are you a coconut butter fan? A white chocolate fan?
What’s something you don’t like now that your 10 year old self would smack you for?
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How about this: i could smack my 10 year old self for not liking coconut!
Agree that’s smack deserving 🙂
I was the pickiest eater as a kid and even in my 20’s so basically everything I eat now I didn’t eat before lol. I do not like white chocolate enough to eat it or seek it out but I wont totally avoid it if it’s involved in a dessert with milk or dark chocolate.
I still love white chocolate even though it hurts my teeth when I eat too much of it. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. 🙂
I like any kind of butter, even better when it’s in cookies. These look positively dreamy.
Thanks Meghan!
These. are. amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And they are even better straight out of the freezer. 🙂
Yes! So glad you liked them. I DID wind up eating a few from the freezer!
These look so good. Looking forward to making after my whole 30 is over (19 more days!).
Haha it will come soon enough! It’s 19 for me too 🙂
Is there a replacement I could use for the tapioca flour?
Arrowroot is a 1:1 sub 🙂
I made my own coconut butter, replaced the maple syrup with blue agave sweetener, used pure cane sugar instead of coconut sugar (that’s what I had on hand), and replaced tapioca with more coconut flour. My cookies came out very crumbly, but nevertheless still delicious! I hope to try the recipe with the original ingredients listed for a more chewy cookie.
Oh and I only had slivered almonds so had to improvise as well 🙂
Adding coconut flour will make it crumbly since it absorbs tons of moisture! Glad you liked the flavor anyway 🙂
Has anyone made these with flax egg?
Made this trip for a hiking trip in Arizona….OMG…. THESE ARE A BOMB!! PER one of my very picky tastebud friend. Easy to make and definitely a winner!!
Hi Michele! Is it possible to sub the maple syrup out for maple sugar?
Thanks!
My cookies were so runny, I followed the directions, but used coconut manna, could that have been the problem?
Sorry, this was not my favorite. I love this blog though and most of the recipes! I must say I don’t usually like baking with coconut flour or when it is the predominant taste, although I DO love coconut in general. I just thought these cookies were a bit dry and meh. I also love chewy cookies but not this texture of chewy. These are more spongey chewy. My kids are then so they didn’t go to waste but I wouldn’t make them again. Sorry 😬 can’t wait to try the next interesting recipe I find on the blog. I love the pecan cranberry chocolate cookies SO MUCH!
These were not good. Dry not chewy and honestly a bit too sweet.