Hot and Spicy! Mayan chocolate chip whole wheat cookies aren't right!

Mr. Maven was walking through the house, munching on cookie in hand, muttering “this isn’t right.”

“What did you say, dear?”

“This just isn’t right. These are spicy cookies”

“What? You don’t like them?”

“That isn’t what I said.”

I threatened to toss them into the garbage. “No! Don’t you dare! I’m just saying that a hot and spicy cookie isn’t right.”

You decide, dear reader.

Ingredients

1 cup light brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter( one stick), softened

1/2 tbsp. finely minced orange  peel

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1/2 tsp. vanilla 

1 egg

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1/2 cup barley flour

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tablespoon (or less?) of red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup bittersweet (60% cocoa if you can get them) chocolate chips

Technique

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine brown and granulated sugars, egg, orange juice, orange peel, chili powder, red pepper flakes and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Add white whole wheat and barley flours, baking soda, cream of tarter and salt and beat until well combined. Add the chocolate chips and mix in by hand with spoon.

2.  Form the cookies into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

3.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Cool 2 minutes and remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack.

Serve with orange or mango sorbet and strawberries? You decide. I think they go dandy with espresso. These cookies spread out and are chewy, crispy. The dough freezes very well indeed.

-maven  

Whole grain goodness: Cornmeal lemon cookies

Oh, yes … these are the perfect companion for a late afternoon cuppa espresso. At least that’s how I did it this afternoon, after taking them out of the oven. I’m putting my stand mixer to the test lately, and cookies are a breeze in it. After the richness of the last batch of gingerbread cookies, I thought I’d try something lighter. These were the perfect choice.

Ingredients - Yield about 25 cookies  Time - about 45 minutes

1 cup of minced golden raisins, tossed with 2 tablespoons flour

6 ounces of softened, unsalted butter

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar ( I recommend fine Bakers Sugar)

zest of two large lemons

Juice of one half lemon

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups flour: *I divided it up thusly - 1/2 cup whole grain millet flour, 1/4 whole grain barley flour, 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup fine or regular whole grain corn meal/polenta ( I prefer finely milled)

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons finely minced fresh rosemary, plus some whole leaves for decoration

3 tablespoons coarse sugar for sprinkling on tops prior to baking

Much of the key to success in baking - or any cooking - is to have everything measured and prepped prior to mixing or cooking. Think it through. Double check. Have everything ready to go.

If you’ve only got frozen butter ( and I keep extra in the freezer), it’s not a good idea to soften it in the microwave. That just melts it. Take your sticks of butter, cut them into 1/2 inch slices with a sharp knife, and put those into a ziplok baggie. Immerse that in a pan of warm water for about 10 minutes, while you get everything else ready. You’ll have properly softened butter.

Technique

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and adjust your racks. Set up your baking zone. Prep your cookie sheets.

Mince the raisins, and toss them with the two tablespoons flour. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or by hand, beat together the softened butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest. Beat until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, corn meal/polenta, minced rosemary, baking powder, salt.

Begin adding the dry ingredients to the stand mixer bowl, a quarter cup at a time. Then add in the raisins.

You can now bake the cookies right away, or wrap the dough in plastic wrap in a log shape, and chill for an hour to until tomorrow. You can even freeze this until a better time.

If you are going to bake them right away, portion them into balls, and set them on a sheet of baking parchment, on a cookie sheet.

You don’t have to space these cookies far apart, since they aren’t going to flatten out that much.

Lightly press a few leaves of fresh rosemary into the tops of the cookies, and then sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, rotate them halfway through if you are not using a convection oven. Remove them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy with espresso, or after dinner with some lemon sorbet.

*NOTE - Of course you can choose the whole grain combo to make your own cookies from. I would caution you to use some all-purpose flour, and mostly whole wheat, and then make up the rest from any combination that suits your fancy. Oat flour, Amaranth, Quinoa would all be excellent choices for this particular cookie. Use more or less of the Barley or whatever. I would even be tempted to try a sweet potato flour.

-maven

Chewy, crispy Ginger Snaps with healthy whole grain goodness

You might have noticed the other day, when I posted the recipe of the luscious applesauce/apple compote, that I made mention of how good it would be with some ginger cookies. That comment has stayed with me all week, so that by this afternoon, I couldn’t stand the strain.

Out came the big ol’ Kitchen Aid stand mixer and the various containers of whole grain flours from my dedicated ‘baking cabinet’. A place of many wonders.

This is so damn good. I was talking to my beautiful step-daughter ( she calls while on her commute homeward to Marin County from the South Bay - hands free, of course) on the speaker phone, as I whipped these up. Yes, our conversations can go on and on and on.

By the time I had them out of the oven and onto the cooling racks, she was starting to sound a little sad, hungry and whiney …. “You’ll probably need some cold milk to go with those…” Sniff. I was picking at the crispy parts that fell off of one and making ooh-y, goo-goo-y, lovey sounds.

“Oh, jeeze, Ronda! That’s right!”

Yup. Cold milk and warm ginger snaps. Chewy. Yet crispy. With just that sweet intersection between the perfect notes of coffee, chocolate and sweet ginger. These ‘snaps’ are almost on the savory side, not too sweet. They would make the perfect finish to a meal.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Now start your engines!

Makes about 30 cookies

You will need a total of 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons of *’flour’. In Maven’s World that meant:

1/4 cup each of spelt, kamut, barley and millet flour

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of finely ground cornmeal

1-1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder. Maven happened to have some Dominican Republic drinking chocolate in the cupboard, so guess what she used.

2-1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger. Make sure it isn’t ground ginger that’s been in the cupboard for the last year and is stale.

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of cloves

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of salt, preferably sea salt

1/3 cup of dark raisins - pulsed in a food processor to a paste

1 cup butter. I used one stick of regular butter (since that was handy in the fridge) plus 1/2 cup of Land O’Lakes spreadable butter with canola oil. Don’t use a butter spread with water in it.

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup blackstrap molasses

2 teaspoons of baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon of boiling water

1/3 cup granulated sugar (you’ll roll the balls of cookie dough in this before baking)

Sift the flour(s), cocoa powder, salt and spices together in the bowl of an electric mixer. A stand mixer is great for this, since you will have a stiff dough. Put the butter, brown sugar, and raisin paste in and mix using the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the molasses.

Add the baking soda mixture and beat thoroughly. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl, shape it into two rounds, which you’ll wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Prepare at least two baking sheets with parchment paper. I have a European convection oven which will take up to five cookie sheets. Shape the dough into 1/2 inch balls, roll them in the granulated sugar, and place them about two inches apart on the baking sheets. These cookies spread. I use a small ice cream scoop - the kind with the thumb lever to release the ball - to portion the dough.

Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, about 10 to 12 minutes. If you want a crisper cookie, bake a minute or so longer. When you remove them from the oven, they’ll be really soft so don’t try and put them directly onto the cooling racks. Let them sit for about five minutes, then take a spatula or fish turner to slip them onto the wire cooling racks. Let them really cool to firm up and become crispy.

Enjoy with cold milk.

They will keep, stored in an airtight container, up to 3 days.

You might think that you’d just gobble these things down, but because they are so packed with whole grains, I find that a couple ‘do it for me’. That’s the beauty of whole grains. They fill you up and keep you full (without the blood sugar spikes) - which is one reason they’re so great for controlling your weight. Plus, in using so many of these different grains, I think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - so to speak. You’re getting the benefit of the micro-nutrients from all these different grains.

*Obviously, I hope, you realize that you can simply use all-purpose flour. You can also use just whole wheat flour, too. I keep canisters - large and small - of these flours in my baking cupboard. I love millet, corn meal and barley in things like these cookies - since they add a subtle savory sweetness. The barley flour adds a neat texture and loads of protein. You could also use oat flour, brown rice flour, sweet potato flour (hey, that might be really neat!) … experiment!

-maven

Gianna's:The very best gingersnap cookies on the planet

I love everything ginger. Gingerbread, big chunks of sugared ginger candy, ginger in my hot toddy, but the very best, perhaps, are the gingersnap cookies from Gianna’s Baking Company, which I got the other day at Whole Foods in Reno

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