Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

A few years ago, I was telling a friend about a whole wheat pasta dish I had enjoyed and their remark took me by surprise. They asked why I would eat such a horrible tasting thing as whole wheat pasta. I tried to defend my desire for more whole grains but, while I knew there were countless health benefits, nothing other than "I need more fiber in my diet" came to mind.
They lamented that fact but suggested I just eat smaller portions of the 'good stuff'. The conversation has stuck in my mind and I have ruminated over this question since- Why eat whole grains if they supposedly taste worse? Why not simply eat less of the processed grains? I believe it boils down to your intended goal, lose weight or overall health? (The teacher in me really wants to type 'loose weight' and see who catches it, but the teacher in me also just can't type that on purpose)



I was only beginning my food explorations at the point that this conversation was held and I didn't know why, but I was already drawn to the unprocessed side of life. After the past year, I feel much more confident in my eating habits. While I'm no supermodel and that is not my purpose, I do strongly feel that the addition of whole grains to my meals was for the better.

There is research behind this as well, of course. Do you know the history of white flour? You might find this article interesting. Or the reason white flour has become so present in our daily eating lives? Shelf life seems to be the answer to so many of my over-processed food questions. Wheat flour has too many good things (vitamins and nutrients) that go bad much quicker than it's processed counterpart. Which seems to be one way that white flour became the norm.

Ease.
Convenience.

Seems like holding ease and convenience near and dear to our hearts has cost us dearly. If you are trying to eat healthier, then you are familiar with this struggle. It's so much easier to eat the processed foods, the pre-made dinners and the packaged cake mixes. I guess it's a struggle for a value you can't readily see, or that's how I view it. Time is valuable and while health is as well, it is a long haul and time is instantly gratifying. Does that make any sense?

I spend an hour every Sunday night chopping vegetables, making smoothies, getting food stuff ready for the week. A year ago, I spent that hour in other ways. Sometimes, when I'm beat and feeling lethargic, I lament my change in eating habits and crave that extra hour of laziness. But then I think ahead, what path will I be on if I take this step forward and change lanes from what I know is good for my body and mind overall, for what seems ok for my body and mind in the moment?

http://wallblank.com/products/food-with-thought

I feel like I'm still learning quite a bit when it comes to my food choices. Reading this book last summer, In Defense of Food, and participating in the October Unprocessed challenge have really guided me in what I believe to be the right direction. Have you heard of the pendulum swing as it relates to ideas and thoughts? In education, people are often referring the pendulum and how it affects our teaching. I can see this though, with our food choices now. I found the poster above, which is from World War 1, and thought it was something you'd see in a new foodie cookbook. How's that for things coming back around?

Anyway, that leads me to my recipe to share. As I do every year around this time, I made carrot cake. Last year the cake was all kinds of messed up and I made a trifle instead with the broken cake. I decided to make carrot cake sandwich cookies this year, sounded like fun!

The dough is sticky but firm after an hour cooling in the fridge.

But, as I was baking them I felt wracked with guilt. All that sugar. All that flour. While this is special occasion, there would be other deliicous meals to celebrate this special birthday, and this was the only one where I had control over the ingredients.

So, I did it. I swapped half the flour for whole wheat flour. I use raw sugar. And I used the recipe that called for 2 cups of oats. Whole grain-y! And I didn't tell a soul. Until they were eaten, then I spilled the beans because A) I can't keep secrets and B) I'm a horrible liar. I giggle like crazy. It's nothing too nutty, I get that, but I feel confident in my decision to attempt to make everything I create in my kitchen a bit better, anyway I can. (I do understand that I'm saying this as I share a cake recipe with a sugary crazy frosting. So be it! It's on my mind!)

I just love the look of these, excuse the abundance of similar photos. I could not resist.

I promise that I'll share more non-baking related recipes soon. I've got a pan fried cod I'm digging and a broiled salmon that is simply rocking my socks, but for now, enjoy this little ditty.

Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies with Whole Wheat Flour
adapted from Martha Stewart

ingredients

1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots, (about 3 large carrots)

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine sugars and butter in a medium sized bowl (you can use a mixer or do this by hand) and beat until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat until combined.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger and stir to combine. Slowly add flour to butter mixture and continue to mix on a low speed until just blended. Mix in the oats and carrots and then chill dough in refrigerator for about an hour, or until it is firm.

Before you bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or grease with butter. These are sticky!

Using a ice-cream scoop, scoop dough onto prepared baking sheets. It's a good idea to leave 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 11 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Prepare the frosting by mixing the cream cheese with the butter, followed by the sugar and vanilla. Adjust the sugar to your tastes/desired thickness.

Once cooled, spread about 2 teaspoons of cream-cheese filling onto a cookie. Squish this onto another cookie and repeat with the rest of the cookies. You can store them in an airtight container for a few days, but good luck with that! 

Enjoy!

-m

Sweet Potato Muffins

About two years ago, I fell in love with roasted sweet potatoes. I had been avoiding eating them ever since every single health related magazine article said I just had to try this 'super food'. I prefer to come to ideas on my own, or at least convince myself that I did.

What a goof, I know. I used to tell my high school tennis coach that I enjoyed doing my backhand wrong. Yes, enjoyed. He would come over and try to correct my form and I would resist. I'd tell him to go away. And I wonder why I never did as well as I wanted to...

I firmly believed that eventually the right way would just miraculously come to me with one swing and I would forever be relieved of my wrongness. I see the error of my ways.. kind of. I'm still guilty of this stubbornness on occasion. Case in point, I probably should have tried sweet potatoes sooner.

Dates, dates, lovely dates. They add so much to these muffins!

I roast up a big bag of sweet potatoes fairly regularly, about once or twice a month. I eat them sometimes with my smoothie for breakfast, as an afternoon snack or with dinner. I just adore them. Their flavor is amazing to me- the wonderful not-quite-potato-more-like-squash texture and the natural sweetness. They are incredibly satisfying.

So aesthetically pleasing, no?

I've done all this roasting, but rarely do anything else with them. That's why this recipe has knocked my socks off something crazy. I've made it three times. I love it, but at first I thought I'd be the only one.

Do you see the chunks of sweet potato? The little bits of orange there at the bottom and top? No? Trust me, it's the best part.

I made mini versions of it the first time I made them, to share with some friends. They were gone so fast! Even when I said "whole wheat sweet potato muffins with dates".

Seriously.

People didn't run away screaming "What's wrong with you!?". I thought they might; the ingredients can sound a tad bit strange on their own, but just imagine each of those flavors mixed together and baked. Heavenly, eh? Well, so far, everyone I share these with just loves them.

These are great right out of the oven, but I usually make them for breakfast/morning snacks for the week. Even my picky husband gobbles them up, though I need to solve the 'sticks to the wrapper' problem as it really drives him bonkers.

Sweet Potato Muffins

adapted from Good to the Grain 


ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon all spice
2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted cold butter
2 large roasted sweet potatoes, about 3/4 lb (I sometimes use 4 small ones if that's what I bought)
1/4 cup sugar (or raw sugar)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup plain yogurt or kefir
6 large medjool dates, pitted and chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roast sweet potatoes on a baking sheet covered with parchment or foil. Roast for 1-1.5 hours, depending on their size. The bottoms should be dark and almost burnt looking and the juices should be caramelizing. After they have cooled, peel them and leave them in tact.

Lower the oven to 350 and grease your muffin pan. Use muffin liners if you wish, though they stick sometimes to the paper cups.

Sift the dry ingredients together. In a small bowl, mix the buttermilk and yogurt.

Add the butters and the sugars to a medium sized bowl and mix either with a standing mixer or by hand. Mix until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and just half of the sweet potatoes (yes! just half!) and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. On low speed, add the dry ingredients until they are just partly combined. Follow this up by adding in the buttermilk mixture and mix until combined.

Add the dates and separate them over the surface so they don't all clump together. You want them spread throughout the batter. Next (my favorite part!), add the remaining sweet potatoes and mix until only barely combined- you want pockets of sweet potato in the batter. Scoop the batter into 10 muffin tins, skipping every other muffin cup if you want to keep the tops from touching as they bake.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the bottoms are dark and tops are springy to the touch. The author of the cookbook suggests placing the muffins on their sides to cool, as pictured above. They can be stored for 3 days or frozen for future enjoyment.

Enjoy!
-m

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