Category — Cookie Recipes

I made these cookies because they don’t have flour in them, which I realize is a little like saying I made my own homemade deodorant this weekend (which, yes, I did—recipe here), in that I’ve probably lost about half of you who are now thinking, what is with this girl? why make cookies without flour in them?

Well, I’ll tell you why.

1. I hadn’t done it before. Generally speaking, if I haven’t done something before, it’s a good idea to give it a shot (cue sweet potato brownies, whole wheat pastry flour, homemade deodorant again). And it’s not just true with food of course. What would my life be like now if I’d never tried starting a blog? Or throwing a party? Or going antiquing with my mom like she likes to do? I’ll tell you how it’d be: less. Less than it is.

Also, 2. I love cookies (you know I love cookies) and so naturally, now that I’m staying away from white sugar and white flour, I wanted to make a cookie without all-purpose flour, but the version I’d tried with spelt flour had been a bust (flat as pancakes), and therefore a cookie sans flour, especially one that closely resembles my favorite, favorite cookies of all time, well, it had my attention.
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Listen, I know I’ve already posted 25 other cookie recipes here.

So if you’re thinking, another one? This girl is out of control! I can’t argue.

But hear me out: no matter how many other types of recipes I try—from cakes to soup to meat to vegetables—it’s still cookies that I love the most. So did my grandma.

I wish I could remember the first time I had a cookie—do you? The earliest I knew, I was stirring batter in Grandma’s kitchen, anticipating the trays we would pull out of the oven, so it’s as if I’ve always liked cookies and they’ve always been there, unlike kale or cheese or spinach or fish or something else I had to grow to enjoy.

And it just makes me think that while there is certainly value in changing perceptions, there is also value in keeping some, in having a few things, such as my parents or my brother or the way it feels to laugh out loud at someone’s story, that I have always loved.

Cookies are like that for me.
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I’ve been having a lot of bad luck in the kitchen lately.

I mean, not that anyone’s keeping track, but, in the last few weeks, the handful of times I’ve found to try a new recipe or carve out an hour to cook, the results were unimpressive (OK, with at least one exception). I made a squash and apple soup that had little flavor. I pureed pumpkin from a little $1.50 pie pumpkin at Meijer, and the three loaves of bread I made with it were barely edible—the one with pecans on top was the best, but even it found an eventual demise in the trash can. My version of candied sweet potatoes wasn’t awful, but that’s really the best endorsement of it I can give and, since when did making something not awful inspire anyone toward the stove?

I decided, sometime this past weekend, that there were a few different conclusions I could draw from this: 1) I’ve been picking bad recipes (over and over again); 2) I’ve been eating so well everywhere else that my standards have risen and maybe these OK things are what I would have once thought good? or 3), most troubling, I cannot cook.

Now, if the problem lies in either the first or second reasons, I can wait this out. But if it’s the third? What do I do—give up? It was starting to feel hypocritical even posting here—who am I to be telling you about recipes to try? I should be begging you for help.

But then I saw some peanut butter sandwich cookies and was inspired to give this kitchen thing one last chance. I can’t say if it’s because I was hungry when I saw them or because they are cookies, the first type of recipe I ever made and the kind that has yet to fail me, but I lost sight of every culinary disappointment and knew only one thing: I was making these cookies, and I was making them that night. [Read more →]

When you come home from work on a Monday night in need of chocolate, sure, it might be easy to run to the store and buy a bag of Oreos (particularly if you were running there anyway to stock up on parchment paper as, ahem, one of us was). But, trust me, this is better.

When you are driving down the street the next night, lowering your windows because, aha!, the weather has cooled down and here are the September breezes! and just as your window slides down, it pops off its track and falls deep into the insides of the door, and you think, wow, I could go for a cookie right now, trust me, these are the ones you’ll be glad to have beside you.

There aren’t a lot of times these cookies wouldn’t make sense, in fact.

Over the last two days: I ate them Monday night while my brother was visiting, and he let me borrow his camera to decide if I could ever understand it (jury’s still out); I brought some to work the next day for me and Becky, where we finished the small stash before 11 AM and had to make toast to tide us over until lunch; and I ate them with Michele and Wendi last night, while we ate organic pizza and looked at the largest map of Colorado I’ve seen (because, side note: we are going to Denver in ONE WEEK!).

These pretty little cookies are as simple to make as mixing, chilling, rolling and baking, and they turn out soft and sweet and covered in shiny bits of crystallized sugar, which makes them perfect for just about anything, at least in my opinion.
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