Last week at home on the farm it stormed. The thunderstorm was sudden and intense, like most summer storms. They sweep in from nowhere. The sky stays blue and bright until just before it starts. The only warning is a subtle change in the atmosphere --- the air feels damp and crackles in anticipation as if with some secret electric charge. Clouds gather quickly. The temperature drops ten degrees. A few raindrops fall, becoming a constant patter, and then sheets of water sluice down from above. The rain is so heavy that your shirt soaks through when you dash outside to check your car windows.
Read moreGRAPE-NUT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Chocolate chip cookies are already pretty good to begin with. Add in a few handfuls of snack-like ingredients for crunch and chew, and they get even better.
I don't remember eating a plain chocolate chip cookie very often growing up -- this is the version I know and love. The cookie dough of this recipe is exceptional, and you should be warned that it's almost impossible to stop eating once you sneak a spoonful.
Read moreCHEWY SPELT OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES
A good novel will always be waiting. Listening to "Latch" by Disclosure will always make you want to dance. And these particular oatmeal cookies will always come out chewy and just a bit sweet.
Read moreCHOCOLATE OLIVE OIL COOKIES WITH SEA SALT
If you run out of eggs, and have no butter, but do find yourself with a serious chocolate craving, you can still make cookies, how's that for good news? These would also be perfect if you needed to bake a dairy-free dessert. The olive oil makes a brownie-like batter. Scoop the dough with a spoon into rounds and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. The result? Fudgy, salty-sweet, soft chocolate cookies.
Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies with Sea Salt
Adapted from Take a Megabite
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa (use Valrhona dark if you want to get serious)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup hot water, plus 2 tablespoons
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Add oil, water and vanilla. Beat until the batter is stiff (it will have a brownie batter-like consistency).
Drop heaping spoonfuls of the batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse or flaked sea salt. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool.
CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES
We're lucky to have cookies in this world, aren't we? We're lucky to have chocolate. We're lucky to have time to bake warm, crinkly, buttery cookies. We're lucky to have people to share them with. We're lucky that instead of being beaten down by tough times, that we can man up and learn how to make something out of sadness.
I call this "silver lining syndrome" or maybe "the only person making you sad or happy is your own damn self syndrome". So when days are not great, at least we know with certainty that we can have a very perfect chocolate cookie to eat while we contemplate how to find a good way to sit with problems, tease and comb them out, lay them in front of us in twisted, shiny strands, and then reorganize them into something neat and happier nd all wrapped up.
These cookies have a very appealing crumb. They easily break as you take a bite -- not the way a shortbread cookie does -- but with a softer, chewier crumble. My fellow tasters and I can't quite describe it, so we'll just say that it is distinct from anything else we've tried and that we like it. And perhaps it is just as well that we couldn't find the words because now you'll just have to make them (and eat them!) yourself!
Also, these would probably be extraordinary with coconut oil instead of butter. Probably.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Adapted from Good Things Grow
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup butter (or coconut oil)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup cane sugar
2 tablespoons flax meal
6 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup spelt flour
6 tablespoons cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup milk
MORE powdered sugar (for rolling!)
Melt the butter or coconut oil with the unsweetened chocolate. Set the mixture aside to cool. Mix the water with the flax meal in a separate bowl and let sit for at least five minutes. In another bowl, combine the flours, cocoa, salt, and baking powder. Add the sugars to the melted chocolate mixture. Add the flax mixture and vanilla and stir well. Add half of the flour and mix. Add the milk and then the remaining flour and stir until combined. Form the dough into a disk and wrap it up. Put the dough in the icebox for at least an hour or the freezer for at least 30 minutes.
When you are ready to bake them, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour some powdered sugar into a bowl. Take the dough out, pinch 1 tablespoon pieces, form them into balls, roll them in the powdered sugar, and place them on the cookie sheets. Bake them for about 12 minutes.
