Winter comfort - Caramel, sea salt, raw cacao, quinoa cookies

Rain, wind, storm, is the prefect backdrop to baking. We have a beautiful french bakery in Amsterdam that bakes among other things, salted chocolate cookies. Crisp, salty, chocolatey. So I tired to make something similar, without knowing their recipe. I was also lucky enough to have a pot of salted caramel in the fridge that I swiftly took advantage of having.

As per usual I had to add a bit of healthy to the mix, so I decided to use some quinoa flour. You do not have to use any, you can instead up the amount of oat or spelt flour. I just cannot seem to bake without adding or subtracting something to balance out the unhealthy. You could replace the oat with whole wheat spelt flour.

I used raw cacao as it contains lots of good for you B vitamins and minerals (bone contributing phosphorus, iron and muscle relaxing magnesium) and a packs a high dosage of antioxidants. It also is very high in caffeine. There is a big difference between cocoa and cacao, the later being unprocessed and therefore retains many of the benefits of chocolate.

Here are the ingredients:

100 grams butter at room temperature
1,5 dl palm, coconut or muscovado sugar (even unbleached white sugar will do)
2 tbsp raw cacao powder
2 tbsp caramel sauce (you could replace this with another 3/4 sugar)
1 dl quinoa flour
1 dl oat flour
1 3/4 dl unbleached spelt flour (not whole wheat).
1 tsp baking powder
3 large pinches of sea salt + another pinch for after baking
1 egg

1. Preheat your oven to 180C. 
2. Mix the butter, sugar and cacao into a paste. Add the egg, continue mixing. 
3. Add the caramel sauce. 
4. Slowly add the flour and baking flour. 
5. Now add the sea salt. 
6. Cover an oven rack with baking paper. 
7. Using two spoons, scoop up a spoonful of the dough and using the other spoon slide it off onto the oven rack. Continue till you have used up all the dough. Then using the backside of a spoon flatten each ball of dough. 
8. Place in the middle of the oven, bake for 8-10minutes. One out of the oven sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of sea salt. 

Serious chocolate chip cookies

I have posted chocolate chip cookies recipes before, and they have also been delicious but all so far have been consciously using more nutritionally rich ingredients. This version is less so. The inspiration? My local coffee spot serves the most delicious chocolate chip cookies. Nothing healthy about them and probably also nothing bio in them. But wow, they are good. So I tried to replicate them, several times actually, each time trying to let go of my wanting to make them healthier. Finally I came to this version, still not as far gone as the originals but close enough.

Here we go, serious chocolate chip cookie ingredients list - makes a batch of approximately 20 cookies: 

4 dl unbleached white spelt flour 

250 grams good quality chocolate

1 tsp salt (don't skip on this as it plays an essential role)

1 dl rosted pecan or walnuts 

100 grams butter (or coconut oil) - softened

1 tsp baking powder

1. Pre heat your oven to 180C. 
2. Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. The add the softened butter, mix. 
3. Now add the chocolate. 
4. Scoop out cookie portions and place on a baking tray.
5. Bake for approx. 8-13min. Keep an eye on them while in the oven as you want them coming out pale, almost under baked. That allows the soft consistency that adds so much to the experience of these delicious little bundles of serious chocolatey-ness. 

Gluten Free Salty Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

Most of the time I have very specific cravings. Same goes for creating these cookies, I wanted chocolate and nut and saltiness in a cookie form. And viola, that's what I created. These can easily be made completely gluten free (although the cookies become more crumbly as mine were) or you can replace the quinoa and oat flour with spelt or regular unbleached wheat flour. I didn't have baking powered in-house so I made do without however I do believe a small pinch of baking powered would be helpful to add a little fluff.

Ingredients to make approx 20 cookies: 

2 dl hazelnut flour/ground hazelnut

1/2 dl palm or coconut sugar

1/2 dl brown cane sugar

1,5 tsp salt (I used himalayan salt as I do with everything as it's much healthier)

2 dl oat flour

1 egg

1 dl rice or quinoa flour (or spelt/wheat which takes away the gluten free aspect) 

1/2 dl coconut oil

40 grams butter

300 grams good quality chocolate

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients then add the softened butter and coconut oil and mix. 
3. Add the egg once the ingredients have combined mix into the dough. 
4. Finally add the chopped up chocolate and mix. 
5. Spoon out a regular spoon of the dough and place on baking paper on an oven tray. Make sure there is space between the each cookie so they can spread out as they bake. 
6. Bake in the middle of the oven between 9-12min.

Enjoy these with a cup of hot tea coffee or if your in a real chocolate mood a cup of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. I hope you like these as much as I did. 

Buckwheat, oat, hempseed - chocolate chip cookies

When you are feeling a little blue or you simply just want some crispy and chewy cookies these are the ones to make.

As always it's a recipe I made up along the way and luckily it turned out in my favor. The nice thing is you can exchange the tahini for peanut butter, the chocolate for cacao nibs, the hemp seeds for walnuts or hazelnuts. Really its what your in the mood for on that particular day you decide to bake these. Also you can feel good about the fact that your using oats and buckwheat flour as they have higher nutritional value as regular plain wheat flour.

Ingredients list - 8-10 cookies

1,5 dl oats
1,5 dl buckwheat flour
1 tbsp tahini
1/2 dl hemp seeds or finely chopped hazel or walnuts
60 grams dark chocolate or purely cacao nibs
1 dl palm sugar or agave or unbleached cane sugar*
1 dl coconut oil
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg

* I prefer to use palm sugar for it's nutritional value and because it had a lovely caramel-ish flavor and smell.

1. Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees C. 
2. In a mixing bowl add the egg and sugar and coconut oil till your left with a smooth paste. 
3. Mix all the dry ingredients minus the nuts and chocolate, and to the paste. 
4. Add the tahini and the nuts. 
5. Chop the chocolate into the size you prefer - I like both small and large chunks so I chop it roughly. 
6. Add the chocolate. 
7. Place some baking paper on a oven tray and then using 2 spoons scoop out the cookie down and place on the baking tray. Make sure you leave space between each scoop as they will melt own into puddles. 
8. Bake in in the middle of the oven for about 10-13min.