Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

I have a hard time with balance, not as in I fall down the stairs (though my wii fit thought I might, and said so frequently), but just within myself. I'm very critical of myself (aren't we all?) and I tend to think in terms of one thing versus another, right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy, runner or walker- there is no blurring of lines in my mind. Either it is, or I am, or it isn't, and I'm not.  I'm realizing this makes my internal dialogue very bipolar and manic. One minute everything is great and I'm just dandy and the next minute everything I thought a minute ago is held in question.

For example, I am trying my best to eat nutritious, wholesome foods. I try to share those things with you. In those moments I feel successful and healthy. I'm pleased as punch with myself and I feel motivated to continue moving forward with all my healthy endeavors. If I find myself aimlessly munching on something with unidentifiable ingredients or, as happened this past week, an ooey gooey delicious fried food dipped in some amazing sauce, well then I just feel crummy and I become immediately 'unhealthy' and unkind to myself.

This is no big, unusual thing. I hear there are a lot of people who are, like me, harder on themselves than they would be to even their nemesis (though my particular nemesis would be a photocopy machine and I do think terrible, terrible things about it. I'm not sure what I think matters to that particularly menacing and minute munching machine. Though, if it could scream, I'm sure I'd take all those hateful ideas about stripping it for parts back.).

My number one new years resolution (it takes me a while to decide these things) is to be as kind to myself as I would be to others. I'm hoping to start that off by working on my sense of balance, taking the good with the bad and living with it all. Admitting that there is no grey area in my mind, and also admitting that in life things are often blurry and yet oddly balanced. Balance. A little bit of that grey area. It's what I think I need. A bit of everything and some well rounded expectations of myself.

Three ways: rolled in sugar (little guys), rolled in chocolate chip type things (big ones) and just a plain cookie.

These chocolate cookies represent a sort of off kilter yet lovely balance to me. Isn't that poetic and fortunate? They are devilshly delicious; deep and dark and chocolatey in the most amazing way. Yet, they are made with a whole grain- spelt flour- and are almost utterly unprocessed. Does that make them healthy? Oh goodness no. But I feel a sense of both whole grain goodness and amazing worthwhile tastes in these beauts.

The reaction to these cookies blew me away, I'm keeping them on my rotation and definitely bringing them around whenever I think a dark, intense chocolatey cookie would balance a situation out.

rolled in little chocolate chips, these were good, but sugar was better!

Chocolate Chocolate Cookies
adapted from Good to the Grain

ingredients

8 ounces (2 sticks) of unsalted butter
16 ounces of dark chocolate or bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), split into two groups (one for melting and one for chunks in the dough)
4 eggs
2 1/4 cups granulated or raw sugar (plus extra for finishing)
2 cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt

To begin, melt the butter and half of the chocolate (8 ounces) in a double boiler or a microwave until they are melted together and mixed well.

Next, add the eggs and the sugar to a large bowl, or the bowl of a mixer if you are so fortunate, and mix well (high speed) for 3 minutes until it gets thick. Mix the warm chocolate in and use a spatula to get all the chocolate and egg/sugar off the sides of the bowl.

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, pouring any leftover grains and bits back into the mix. Mix the dry ingredients with the chocolate mixture and stir well. Add the remaining chopped chocolate and continue mixing until everything is mixed well.

Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours and up to 3 days. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place parchment paper on your cookie sheets. Begin rolling the dough into large tablespoon sized balls, rolling them lightly in sugar before placing them on the cookie sheets. You can also roll them in cacao nibs, or leave them plain. I preferred the sugar.) Leave 2-3 inches between the cookies, as they will collide if you do not.

Bake the cookies for 15-19 minutes, until the edges are firm but the middle still soft. Cool on the parchment or a cooking rack.

Enjoy!
-m

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Bars

I'm filing a name change for these beauts, I no longer want these particular things to be called 'bars'. It seems oddly derogatory. They are so much more than a bar, they are just lovely. That's it. I want to rename them 'Peanut Butter Lovelies'. Yes, please. 

I didn't set out to make Peanut Butter Lovelies (when you say it, you have to kind of swivel your head around and point your chin up a bit, they are just so lovely, now say it with me 'peanut butter lovelies'. yes yes.). I just wanted to make some cookies. I had peanut butter and this honking pound of chocolate and I thought, well why not make some of our favorite peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies?

Because I hate chopping chocolate, that's why not. It took me a few hours of hemming and hawing  (those are words, right? They look so ridiculous, just the way I probably do whilst saying 'peanut butter lovelies' just the way that I imagine John Cleese would) before I just decided to do it. I had recently had a bit of a chocolate/glass disaster that I was aiming to avoid, but I didn't let it stop me. No way, so what if I caused an inept glass bowl full of chocolate I had so willingly chopped to shatter to pieces on my stove and so what if I left the mess wrapped up in a garbage bag in the sink in the garage that caused a minor flood, psh, so what. No big deal.

I wish I had thought that. Instead I thought, good luck crazy. Then I started chopping chocolate and hating every minute of it. The catastrophist in me just sees the way the blade slips along the hard chocolate, hardly following my commands, and worries about my dainty fingers. I like to let my mind wander whenever I can and this is not one of those times. No way, chopping chocolate requires constant vigilance, of which I have very little. I'm easily distracted, so sue me.

I just want to take a nap on this. Who doesn't?

But these Peanut Butter Lovelies (now you have to use a British accent as well when you say it, come on! you know you want to!) were worth the effort. I didn't want to ball up a bunch of cookies, and so it became a large bar. The melted chocolate on the top was the kicker, the dark chocolate and peanut butter combination being one of my all time favorites. While I thoroughly enjoyed these lovelies, next time I'm adding pretzels. Yes, pretzels. To the top, right after I pour that divine chocolate over the pillowy cooked cookie dough. You should try that, and let me know just how amazing it is.

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Bars or Peanut Butter Lovelies
inspired by The Village Baker's Wife Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

print this recipe

ingredients

1 cup butter (two sticks) at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter (your choice!) room temperature
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
15-20 ounces of dark chocolate, cut into 1/2 in chunks (1 pound or so)
2 cups chopped pretzels (optional, highly suggested though not attempted)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, as usual. Like your 9 x 13 pan with parchment paper- you will thank yourself later for this step.

Cream the butter and peanut butter together, adding the sugars and mixing until it is all fully incorporated. Next, add the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla.

In another bowl mix together the flour and baking soda. Gradually add this dry mixture to the wet mixture and combine until it is all gloriously intermingled. Toss in 1/3 of the chopped chocolate (about 5 ounces or 2/3 cup). Use a rubber spatula to clean down the sides of the bowl and make sure everything is mixed together well.

Now,  the best part and the reason I went with bars instead of cookies, dump the whole thing into the prepared pan and spread around with a butter knife or a spatula. Bake for 22-27 minutes, or until the edges are a nice golden color and a toothpick inserted comes out relatively clean (I prefer to under-bake my goodies so they retain their moist chewiness, which means that I let a few crumbs slide onto the toothpick and call it done, which was about 24 minutes in my kind of super hot oven).

Finally, take the leftover chocolate and melt it in a double boiler over simmering water until all the chocolate is melted. Then, pour the melted chocolate over the cooled bars, spreading it all evenly around as best you can. Here is my great idea I have yet to try, put crumbled pretzels on the top after you pour the chocolate- I imagine this would be divine! I'm going to try this next time. Let this chill in the fridge until the chocolate hardens, about 2 hours or pop them in the freezer if you need them faster. They are best cut up when the chocolate is hard, but closer to room temperature or it will crack. Cut up and serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!
-m

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

I did that thing I'm not supposed to do.

I tried a new chocolate chip cookie recipe.

After October Unprocessed I was left curious about how I can make some of my favorite things less processed. I had tried to simply add whole wheat or raw sugar to other recipes and found that it doesn't always work that easily. Sometimes you need a recipe that is tailored to the new ingredients, so I turned to a cookbook I haven't used much but that I drool over often, Good to the Grain.

The only thing I wanted to change in the recipe was the sugar. I've been noticing that refined sugar makes me jittery and makes it hard for me to sleep, so I've been using raw sugar or honey whenever I can. This would be my grand experiment with these cookies- make them whole wheat, as the recipe suggests, but to change the sugars to raw sugar, honey and molasses.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of refined sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar. I used 1 cup of raw sugar and 1/4 cup of molasses and 1/4 cup of honey. I was worried about the moisture I was adding, more than I was worried about the flavors. That's why I started with the small amounts, 1/4 cup seemed small but also seemed like a lot of a much more viscous liquid than the sugars I was replacing.

Here I was, sitting in my kitchen doing math. I'm totally going to use this in a math lesson, as I do often. I bring in my recipes where I have halved or doubled a recipe and had to do real life math, adding fractions or converting them to decimals since me and fractions have a love/hate/super despise relationship. The kids always seem in awe of the chicken scratch pencil math above the recipes and the crumbs I so proudly leave in the crevices of my cookbook. It's fun. It's real.

The dough was much darker than your average cookie dough but it tasted amazing. The baked cookies were even more so. But the darkness of the dough did make it hard to identify when they were done in the oven, golden? They were golden to begin with! I went with a dark golden. I'm such a smarty pants with that one, eh? I actually always use the bottom of the cookies to tell when they are 'done'. I really really don't like crunchy cookies, so I just check the bottom of one cookie. If it looks golden, crispy and solid (as in, will provide a solid base as opposed to a floppy base) then they are done even if the tops looks less than done.

I wish I had made more. I want to have these around always. They were that good. Don't get me wrong, they were definitely a 'healthy' version of a cookie but they didn't taste like a cracker or a muffin (if you have ever attempted to convert any traditional recipe to a 'whole wheat' or healthy alternative I'm sure you'll know what I mean there- one time I tried to make whole wheat cookies and Dylan walked in the front door and asked me why I was making homemade cereal. That's just how it smelled, like I was making homemade bran flakes).
They were all cookie and all delicious. They were moist and chewy and the chunks of chocolate were just perfect. You can make them super large, 3 tablespoons of dough (!), or smaller, 1 tablespoon worked as well.

Even after a few days in an airtight container, they were still moist and tasty.

 
If you are looking for a healthy twist on a favorite, give these a try. I plan to include them in my cookie rotation.

Whole Wheat Cookies
adapted from Good to the Grain

click here for printable recipe

ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
8 ounces cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 ounces dark chocolate, cut into medium-large chunks (depending on what you prefer)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, line your baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together and set it aside.

Add the raw sugar and butter to the bowl of a mixer and mix on low speed until the mixture has blended. Turn the mixer on low and slowly add the honey and molasses, waiting until it is mixed together before adding each. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

Add the flour to the wet mixture and stir until it is combined, then stir in the chocolate. The cookies were best when made large, about 3 tablespoons of dough, but also worked well with about 1 tablespoon of dough. Decide what size to make your cookie and drop the dough on the cookie sheets. Bake the large cookies for 14-18 minutes, and the smaller ones for 12-16 minutes. Keep your eye on them, pull them out when they are golden, but not dark, around the edges. I take them out before they seem done, when a finger pressed into the cookie leaves a little dent. but I'm crazy and love moist cookies.

They kept well for 3 days in an airtight container.

Enjoy!
-m

Chocolate Chip Fabulousness

Baking cookies might be one of those unhealthy obsessions I'll eventually have to deal with. It's one of my favorite ways to spend time, and I swear it's almost as therapeutic as a long run. Almost. I especially adore the basic drop cookies: oatmeal raisin, peanut butter and chocolate chip. It feels so 'done' to say that I love chocolate chip cookies, but I do. And like many other homemade wonders, I'm such a cookie snob. I may love them, but I'm not going to eat a crappy cookie.



I like thick, chewy cookies and that is precisely why this cookie recipe is such a winner. Last year I attempted to find another go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tried about five new recipes, a few more than once, and after my third attempt to love these cookies my husband begged me to stop the charade and admit that my tried and true chocolate chip cookie recipe would always reign supreme. He was so right.

Every time I make these, I get someone begging for the recipe. I have tried adjusting the ingredients, it's a bit heavy on dry stuff, but the original recipe prevails. Someone worked hard to create this recipe. I'm sure of it, I like to imagine someone toiling away in a basement kitchen (those exist, right?) making batch after batch of cookies. Sweat on their brow, flour in their hair. Oh my, see what I've done there? I turned my favorite cookie recipe into a fairy tale. Soon elves will pop out and a wizard will slay a rogue singing soldier mouse.



I've been making these for over 10 years, and my cookbook shows the love. On the subject of the cookbook- The Village Baker's Wife- this is a must have. I could go on and on and on about it and the bakery they own that I wish I lived in, but I won't. Not now at least, there are cookies to attend to.






Chocolate Chip Cookies
From "The Village Baker's Wife" by Gayle and Joe Ortiz

Ingredients

1 cup (8 oz) butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (seems like a lot, but it's worth the extra arm strength needed to mix it up!)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preaheat your oven to 350 degrees. Eat an apple so you're not so tempted to scarf down all the dough as you form the cookies later. Trust me. You'll want to eat it all. Get out your baking sheets, use parchment paper if that's your thing. They come off fine without it, but it makes for easy cleanup.

Cream the butter in a large bowl, either using a mixer or by hand. Add the sugars and mix until combined. Beat in 1 egg and the vanilla. Add the remaining egg and mix- but not too much, just until it comes together nicely. Set this gorgeous concoction aside.

In a different bowl, mix these ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the buttery mixture (I like to do it in thirds). Mix it until it is just combined, then dump in your chocolate chips and combine.

Using a large spoon, scoop and drop a good dollop of dough (I generally use a heaping tablespoon or two) on the baking sheets. Don't mess with them after you drop them- leave them be!

Bake for 10-14 minutes. Don't go far, keep your eye on them. I like to take them out when they look close to done and soft but not too golden brown. I let them sit on the rack while I prepare another pan. But if you want them crispier, by all means, bake them longer.

They don't last long, be warned.

Note: I've substituted all kinds of things for chocolate chips in this recipe and it almost always works wonders- trail mix, mini peanut butter cups, dried cranberries. The 'base' is so great, it compliments almost anything that might make you think 'that would be good in cookie'.