I had a dream. As much as I love sweet crêpes, I’ve always been a bit more of a fan of galettes – crêpes’ hearty, buckwheat flour, savory older cousins. Once when making galettes and crêpes, I made myself a dessert “crêpe” using the buckwheat galette batter. The French people present were horrified, to say the least, but I was thrilled. I didn’t know if my dessert got in my dinner or my dinner got in my dessert. The nutty buckwheat and dark chocolate were my own chocolate and peanut butter: together at last.
These cookies are way easier to make (less than 30 minutes from pulling things from the cupboard to a warm cookie in your mouth if you pay attention) and will, I hope, find a wider audience.
Chocolate buckwheat cookies
These cookies are soft, chocolate-y, and have a decidedly but undefinable nutty taste and slightly sandy texture that makes complete sense if you know there is a generous amount of buckwheat flour in them. Don’t over-bake these; the texture goes from divine to ho-hum if you do.
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
Preheat oven to 350. Chop chocolate and melt it. (I like to put mine in a small bowl, fill a slightly larger bowl with boiling water, and set the small bowl in the boiling water and just let it sit. It melts and it can’t scorch and I can start on other things.) Let it cool a bit before using.
Combine the buckwheat and whole wheat pastry flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Cream butter and brown sugar until fairly light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Make sure the chocolate is cool enough to touch comfortably (go ahead, stick your finger in there!) – you don’t want it to melt the butter or start cooking the egg when you add it to the batter. Beat into the butter-sugar-egg mixture.
Add the dry ingredients and beat to stir just to combine.
Dollop generous tablespoonfuls of the batter on one cookie sheet if you want less clean-up but more cooking time (two batches) or on two cookie sheets if you’d rather rinse an extra pan than deal with a second batch. Bake 5 minutes. Turn/rotate pan(s) and bake another 5 minutes. Let cool slightly on the sheet(s) before transferring to a cooling rack.
You should get 2 dozen cookies.
Cathi Hull | 21-Mar-10 at 7:01 am | Permalink
Molly,
These cookies look so delicious I wanted to reach through the computer and take a big bite. I’m going to try them when my friend Liane comes to visit this weekend.
We have cooked and “concocted” recipes together in our younger days and I think she will love trying these.
Thank you for taking what’s in that lovely, food oriented, creative head and putting it down for the rest of us.
The gold digger | 06-Apr-10 at 11:38 am | Permalink
I tried these today and they are fabulous!
Molly Watson | 06-Apr-10 at 3:35 pm | Permalink
So glad you liked them!
Tracy Elaine | 16-Apr-10 at 10:14 am | Permalink
These sound yummy. The cookies at Specialty’s are my favorites, and they too have a “sandy” texture. I’m wondering if that is their secret as well. I’ll have to try these for our next dinner party.
Lara | 16-Apr-10 at 3:17 pm | Permalink
definitely plan to try these this rainy weekend! Thank you for being a continual source of culinary inspiration!
Laura | 17-Apr-10 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
Pastry flour? Is that the same as bread flour?
Molly Watson | 17-Apr-10 at 5:32 pm | Permalink
Nope – in some ways it’s the opposite. Bread flour has more protein than all purpose, pastry flour has less. Whole wheat pastry flour is ground a bit finer than regular whole wheat flour and, in my experience, can substitute in for all purpose white flour very nicely while still being whole grain.
Keri | 18-Apr-10 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
These cookies are so deliciously soft and chocolaty! I baked a batch tonight and they are everything I hoped for when I read the recipe. I sprinkled in some chocolate chips before baking and was happy with that addition. I will definitely make these again. Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Molly Watson | 19-Apr-10 at 7:22 am | Permalink
Glad you liked them Keri! Great idea to add chips….