Basic Cookie Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 350℉. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• In a medium sized bowl mix the dry ingredients – almond flour, Bob's Red Mill 1:1 flour, tapioca starch and sea salt. Stir until there are no clumps.
• Mix the melted coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Pour into the dry ingredients. Stir and use your hands to form the dough into a ball. The dough will be soft and slightly sticky. Let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. The flour will absorb some moisture as it sits. If it is very hot, put the dough in the fridge for no longer then 10 minutes. It should be more firm to roll out.
• Roll the dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper until the dough is 1/4" thick. Cut out the cookies with your cutter. Use an offset spatula to carefully transfer the cookies to the lined baking sheet. Form the leftover dough into a ball and roll out again until all the dough is used.
• Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Watch carefully. They should be a light golden brown around the edges. If they're baked for too long they'll start to puff up a bit. Let them cool on the pan for 15 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack.
• Once the cookies are cooled melt the chocolate. To do this place the chopped chocolate into a large bowl and place it on top of a small pot filled with a few inches of water. The water should not touch the bottom of the bowl. Bring the water to a simmer. (Double boiler method). The chocolate should melt in about 8-10 minutes. Stir occasionally as it melts.
• Once the chocolate is melted put it into a pipping bag or a squeeze bottle and make the 'seaweed' on the cookies. Once the chocolate is set, they can be stored in the fridge in a sealed container for 4-5 days. Enjoy!

Flavor variations

Sesame

• Follow the basic cookie recipe except after the dough is rolled out, sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Very lightly roll over the dough again, just so that the sesame seeds stick to the dough. Cut out the cookies. Gather the leftover dough and repeat. It's ok if sesame seeds get mixed into the dough as well.

Matcha

• Follow the basic cookie recipe and add the matcha to the dry ingredients. Sift the matcha if it's clumpy.

Cherry Blossom

• Before starting on the cookies, soak the cherry blossoms in warm water for about 20 minutes. This is to dissolve and rinse off the salt. Drain and dry on a clean kitchen towel or paper towels. Finely chop the cherry blossoms. The stems can be used as well but they will look darker in the cookies.

  Follow the basic cookie recipe except once the dough is formed into a ball gently fold in the cherry blossoms. Use your hands to blend the blossoms with the dough.

Umeboshi

• Before starting on the cookies, pit 8-10 umeboshi plums. Lay them flat. I used a small circle cookie cutter to cut out a perfect circle. I find that I can get two circles with one umeboshi. If you don't have a cutter the right size you can just shape the umeboshi into a circle on the cookie. Follow the basic cookie recipe except once the cookies are ready to be baked, gently press one umeboshi on top of the cookies.