Bison Tallow Bison Cookies

Doing some experimenting in the kitchen lately. With the holidays here a lot of people are baking cookies. All of those recipes call for butter or some sort of oil. Who says those are the only fats you can use? What about using animal fat?

This is a basic shortbread type cookie recipe that is gluten free and Keto friendly!

Little back story here but my wife is gluten-free. And in turn our house is pretty much gluten free and I use things like almond flour for baking. It tastes great and has high protein content.

As you look over many shortbread or sugar cookie recipes every one of them calls for either butter or some processed oil like canola oil. What if you do not have either of those. Really what did they use back in the old days, when every house did not have a pantry of processed and shelf stable foods? Could you use animal fat? I happen to be a person that always has two things in my fridge, leftover rendered bacon grease and a jar of EPIC Bison tallow. I have always been a person that thinks animal fats are better for us than processed foods.

So, I put together an plan and made some cool looking and delicious little bison cookies made with bison tallow. Spoiler alert: they were great! You CAN use animal fat to bake. I would love to get my hands on some bear fat someday and use it to bake a pie crust or make some Jamaican patties.

Photo by Life Of Pix from Pexels

Ingredients

• 1 cup almond flour

• 3 tablespoons bison tallow, softened

• 3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

• good pinch of salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• ¼ cup of crushed pecans (only needed if making the bison)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix all of the ingredients in a small bowl until a cohesive dough forms.

3. Place the dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set up and allow the fat to re-harden.

4. Remove dough from fridge and gently roll out until ¼” thick and use cookie cutters to cut the shapes you like. Or like I did form my little bison by hand.

5. If using whole pecans pulse them in a food processor or magic bullet type machine. Put some of these on the backs of the little bison to create the back fur. ***Note: You can also scoop 1" balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet; a teaspoon cookie scoop works well here. Arrange the balls of dough about 1 1/2" to 2" apart.

6. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, until they start to turn light golden brown on top.

7. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool them on the pan for 10 minutes. Transfer them to a rack to cool completely before serving.

These cookies are amazing and really could be made with beef tallow or pork lard just as easily. I wouldn't recommend bacon fat because of the smoke and nitrates that most bacon contain; it would give off an undesirable flavor.

Feel free to experiment with the base of this recipe yourself. Make peanut butter cookies by swapping out some of the fat with equal parts of peanut butter. You could also make Maple Pecan Shortbread Cookies by adding 2 teaspoons maple syrup, and 1/4 cup diced or crushed pecans to the dough.