These sorghum almond cookies are so addictive that you can’t take your hands off of them. Imagine the taste of soft almond shortbread cookies, but even better with an egg glaze and aromatic toasted sesame seeds. Ancient grain sorghum flour adds a load of nutrients and slight sweetness. The sorghum almond cookies are gluten-free, and made without refined sugar.

Aren’t these cookies adorable? The sesame seeds totally give away my culinary roots. Decorative black sesame seeds and shiny egg glaze are not only features of royal desserts of ancient China, but also darn delicious! The main part of the cookie is buttery, crumbly, moist, light and nutty. These sorghum almond cookies are the best of both worlds.

Gluten-Free Flours

In this cookie recipe, I used 2 kinds of gluten-free flours: almond flour and sorghum flour.

Almond Flour: Folks are fairly familiar with almond flour. Not only almond flour is gluten-free, it’s grain-free too, and often used in paleo and low-carb baking. Almond flour provides all the nutrition of the almonds, and a good amount of fat that makes the cookies extra decadent.
Sorghum Flour: Less commonly known, sorghum is a nutritious ancient grain and non-GMO. Sorghum flour is a whole grain flour, so on one hand it retains all the micronutrients of the whole grain, on the other hand it is harder to digest, therefore I highly recommend using sprouted sorghum flour. Naturally gluten-free, sorghum flour is safe for celiac disease. In addition, being low on the glycemic index, sorghum flour is also a good option for diabetics.

If you are sensitive to gluten, there are a variety of naturally gluten-free flours to choose from for your baking projects. Besides almond flour and sorghum flour I used in this cookie recipe, check out these other gluten-free flours:

Gluten-Free Baking Tips for Sorghum Almond Cookies

The challenge of baking with gluten-free flours is that most of them don’t bind easily. It is the case with almond flour and sorghum flour. In this sorghum almond cookie recipe, we need to create a cookie dough that stick together, in order to make cookies that don’t fall apart after baking.

I used egg white and tapioca starch in the cookie dough to hold the almond flour and sorghum flour into shape. Both egg white and tapioca starch act like the glue. The fun part is that we aren’t going to waste the egg yolks either – reserve the egg yolks to make an egg wash! See the next 2 sections on what to do with the egg wash.

Related: More Gluten-Free Flour Recipes You Will Love

How to Make Sorghum Almond Cookies

The following images illustrate key preparation steps for making sorghum almond cookies, before baking them.

Start with grass-fed butter and coconut sugar. For dairy-free option, use ghee instead of butter. If you don’t have coconut sugar on hand, it can be substituted with any other sugar.
If the butter is hard right out of the fridge, microwave for 30 to 40 seconds until it’s softened. And then stir the coconut sugar into the soft butter.
Separate 2 eggs into whites and yolks.
Add the egg whites into the butter-sugar mixture.
Stir the egg whites and butter-sugar mixture together until smooth.
Combine all dry ingredients: sorghum flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and tapioca starch, together in another mixing bowl.
Gently mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients to form a dough.
Cut the dough into small pieces, each about the size of a walnut.
Flatten each piece into a round cookie shape, and then place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Beat the egg yolks into a liquid form. Use half of the egg wash to brush over the top of each cookie. Reserve the other half. See next section for what to do with the leftover egg wash.

At this point, the cookies will go into the oven to be baked until about 60% done. Next, we will be decorating the sorghum almond cookies.

Decorating Sorghum Almond Cookies with Sesame Seeds and Egg Glaze

Purpose of the Sesame Seeds

The black sesame seeds are not just for looks! They add a little crunch to the sorghum almond cookies, but more importantly the aromatic toasted sesame seeds add a distinct flavour. Sesame seeds paired with buttery cookies yield such a tasty combination making this recipe shine!

Purpose of the Egg Wash

The egg yolk glaze serves multiple purposes too. It’s pretty, it’s delicious, and it acts like a glue to stick the sesame seeds onto the sorghum almond cookies.

How to Glue Sesame Seeds with the Egg Glaze

The following images illustrate giving the cookies a second egg wash, and then while the egg wash is still wet, sprinkle the black sesame seeds immediately to stick on top of the cookies.

This step is done when the cookies are partially baked, for about 10 minutes, and before going back to the oven to be baked for an additional 7 minutes.

Why applying the egg wash twice?

Applying the egg wash twice gives the cookies extra shine, more vibrant yellow colour and a good coverage of the glaze. You need at least 1 application of the egg wash to stick the sesame seeds. Technically, you can skip the first application of the egg wash if you can do a really good job with a single coat.

Why applying the second egg wash / sesame seeds half way through the baking process?

This is to give the sesame seeds the right amount of toasting time. Over baking the sesame seeds may burn them. As I am using raw sesame seeds, they need to be toasted for about 7 minutes to become fragrant. If you are using already toasted sesame seeds, you can add the sesame seeds a little later into the baking process, but you can’t do this after the cookies are completely done, because you still need to bake the egg glaze onto the cookies.