C is for Cookie (That’s Good Enough for Me)

Cookies are not generally my friend.

For one thing, they’re too small. They don’t require a commitment, like bread or cake does. You don’t have to slow down and think, or get out a knife and a plate. No. You pick those bad boys up, one in each hand, and usually one in your mouth, and, well, then, do you have the two cookies you said you could have? Or have you had one more? What are you mumbling with your mouth full? Stop chewing, darn it. This is your Conscience speaking.

Tsk. Cookies. Too small for their own good.

But sometimes, a girl’s just gotta have a cookie. Or, a biscuit, if you’re British. Although apparently cookies exist here, I just can’t figure out how come those cookies are cookies and they’re not biscuits. But then, if you’re Scottish, there are like six words for HILL, so don’t worry too much trying to figure out this one. Let’s get back to the point: COOKIES.

(I have to apologize for the craptastic nature of the first couple of pictures. We have ONE nice fancy camera, and then… my phone. I did my best, but because of the low lighting in the kitchen, these are fuzzy and make our house look like it’s back in the 70’s. Sorry.)

A friend sent me a box of chocolate bars from Portland, apparently secure in her sympathetic belief that there is no chocolate in Scotland. Actually, she was just worried that I hadn’t found any chocolate covered crystallized ginger here, and while it probably exists, I’m just as happy I don’t have to look anymore. Not only is this bar divided into tidy little squares, inside each wrapper is a love poem — in this one, the Bard’s famous 18th sonnet. Gotta love that. I decided to use these hot/sweet chocolate bars as my chocolate chips.

Fortunately, the Post Punk Kitchen Blog and I were on the same page. I used their same basic recipe, but as always, I couldn’t resist the tweaking. So, here’s mine:

Chocolate and Chipper

• 1/2 brown sugar
• 1/4 white sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 4 Tablespoons applesauce
• 1/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened soy)
• 1 tablespoon tapioca flour
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c. oatbran
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Two 3.2 ounce crystallized ginger chocolate bars, chopped, or 3/4 c. chips

1. Preheat your oven to 350° and make sure your cookie sheets are ready to go,



2. With a fork or a stick blender, blend together sugar and oil until it is thoroughly combined. Since my applesauce was chunky, I had to throw that in, too.
3. I added the wet ingredients in order and then the dry, and by the time I got to the chocolate chunks, I had to sort of just fold them in. It’s a stiff dough.
4. Using a tablespoon measuring spoon, make ping pong sized balls and flatten them on your cookie sheet. Mine were about an inch across.
5. Bake each pan for 8-9 minutes, tops — chocolate chip cookies are always molten and then do their last baking on the sheet. Let them rest for five minutes before even attempting to move them!

This yielded two dozen cookies, plus the three tiny “taster” cookies I made.

Because of the dual sugars, these cookies are soft and will stay soft and yummy. You’ll note that I cut the amount of oil used in the original recipe; I prefer to rely on the sugars and applesauce to keep the moisture instead of the oil.

You’ll also note that these cookies do not even remotely resemble Tollhouse, or even the Post Punk cookies — and that’s because of the flour. The original recipe calls for AP, I had whole wheat, so that’s what I used. A simple substitution involves using oat, AP, or even white flour to make the cookies look a little less scary to the fiber-averse. (On the other hand fiber AND chocolate should be a win-win.)

If you don’t have tapioca, experiment with using a tablespoon of ground flaxseed. The tapioca flour is an egg substitute; I didn’t grow up using eggs in cookies very often, so I doubt a whole lot is needed to keep the cookies held together. Just — try making it without, and see what happens. If the first batch crumbles, you can always spoon the rest of the dough over sliced fruit and call it a crumble.

There was a tiny hitch in this project; I intended to simply bake a batch of cookies, eat one or three, and then set them free into the wider world. Unfortunately, D’s department put on a full sit-down luncheon the day I packed him off with the goods, so he triumphantly returned the cookies home, made a few statements which began with the word “Mine,” and retired happily to a dim corner.

Cookie Monster is in the house.

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