Neverending Winter Cookies

After a 23 month hiatus, Hungry in Halifax is back, dear readers! There will be an update and new project news coming soon, but in the meantime, my friend Jacqueline has shared this post for almond flour chocolate chip cookies--a recipe that can be made with little ones. I'll post an update when I make a batch myself.

Thanks, Jacqueline!

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Life in Halifax this winter has had its challenges. It has been long, cold, snowy and icy. Being home on maternity leave, with two little ones, in the dead of winter is not always as much fun as it sounds. Not to mention our family is missing some special friends that moved away last year, that we love to cook and dine with. What else is there to do than take to the kitchen? 

So I’ve been trying out some new baking recipes with my daughter Clara. Most days we are going for healthy, butter-free, sugar-free and white-flour-free sweets. 

Here's a recipe we have been enjoying that I am so glad to share on this blog. I think I originally found it on a paleo-diet site, but I can’t remember where exactly. This recipe is easy, chewy and delicious – especially still warm from the oven. If you don’t feel like chocolate, try substituting something else for the chocolate chips, like dried cranberries or blueberries. Enjoy!

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Takes 30 minutes

Makes 2 dozen cookies

2 cups almond meal

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

¼ cup coconut oil, softened

3 Tbsp maple syrup

2 tsp vanilla

½ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Mix the dry ingredients together, add the wet, mix it all up, and fold in the chocolate chips. 

Roll them into flattened balls, and bake on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet for 8–9 minutes, until lightly browned at the edges. 

 

So easy, healthy and delicious!

Jacqueline

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

I love the holidays!  I love the occasions to gather over food with loved ones, the opportunities to reflect on the year that has passed, and to simply enjoy being together.

I also love the family recipes that get brought out around holidays and the stories that go with them.  A friend and I had an early Hannukah brunch where we made Jewish classics with Indian flavors.  She made curried sweet potato latkes, and I made an interpretation of matzo ball soup (recipe coming soon).  The highlight though, might have been cardamom and saffron mandelbroit, adapted from another friend's family recipe.  It came with instructions from Aunt Alice and my friend's mom, and this post-script: "Aunt Alice was the coolest. She was a big, fleshy, jolly, southern Jewish woman from Atlanta with a drawl and a really sassy sense of humor. I am told that at one point she owned a cat named "Damnit" so she could have the thrill of hollering "Come here, Damnit!" off her porch in the evening."

Damnit would totally come running if he smelled these coming out of the oven!  They are delicious--not too sweet, not too hard, but like a cross between a very dry cake and shortbread.  And very nutty too!

I adapted Aunt Alice's recipe for vegans by substituting flax meal and water for the eggs (1 tablespoon flax meal + 1/4 cup water = 1 egg).  Flax meal is a wonderful substitute for eggs in recipes that use them to bind the ingredients together.  It will not help your baked goods rise however!  If you would prefer to use eggs, just switch out the flax meal and water with 4 eggs.

Yum!  Perfect to have around the house for the holidays, or good for any day along with a cup of tea!

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

Adapted from Aunt Alice's recipe and Nehama Stampfer Glogower's instructions

Takes 2 hours

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

1 cup (plus a little extra) raw almonds

1/4 cup flax meal

1 cup warm water

1 pinch saffron

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar

6 cardamom pods, powdered fine

1 cup oil (I used grapeseed, but I wish I had had almond oil)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.  Toast the almonds for 15 minutes.  When cool, pulverize to coarse meal in a food processor.  Set aside a few tablespoons to dust the cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit, and make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven.

In a large bowl, mix flax meal, water and saffron.  Let congeal while you mix together the ground almonds, flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl.  Beat the sugar, cardamom and oil into the other wet ingredients.  Add dry ingredients, and stir until combined.

With wet or oiled hands, form the dough into three 'snake-like things', and place them length-wise and evenly spaced on a baking sheet lined with parchment.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes 'until it looks toasty'.

Mix the set-aside almonds and a little sugar together.

Slide the parchment paper with mandel bread off of the baking tray onto a counter.  Sprinkle the tops of the snakes with the almond and sugar mixture, and cut into even pieces, about 1/2 inch.  

 
Lie them flat on the baking sheet and return to the oven.  Turn the temperature down to 300 degrees.  Bake for 10 minutes to dry them out.  Turn them over, and bake for 10 more minutes.

Thanks Aunt Alice!  Let the holiday baking begin!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another sorta vegan dessert!  These cookies came out so beautifully, and honestly, were the product of just what I had on hand thrown together (a perfect way to get rid of the small amounts of sugars left in the pantry).

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Takes 1 hour
Makes 26 cookies

1/2 cup almond oil

1/4 cup Earth Balance vegan spread

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk (lactose free)

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 cups chocolate chips

3 cups rolled or quick cooking oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or aluminum foil).

Beat together the sugars and almond oil.  Then add Earth Balance and beat until thoroughly combined.  Add vanilla and milk and stir until smooth.  Add baking soda, cinnamon and salt, and stir until well-combined.  Add flour, stir.  Add oats, and stir.  Add chocolate chips and walnuts, and yes, stir until combined.

Using a 1/4 cup measure, spoon dough onto cookie sheets, about 8 per sheet.  Bake for 12 to 14 minutes (one sheet in the oven at a time), rotating half way.

Let cool (if you can!).

Happy Birthday Cookies

By request, for someone's very special birthday, I made these sorta vegan chocolate chip cookies.  The no-egg, no-butter, lactose-free milk versions of amazing chocolate chip cookies.  These came out really well, the perfect size, crisp, but with some chewiness as well.

Chocolate chip cookies 
Makes 3 dozen cookies 

Takes 2 hours (for all the baking and cooling)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup Earth Balance, softened

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

8 1/4 tablespoons Milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)

1/2 c. lightly toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together Smart Balance and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the milk and vanilla, and beat until combined.

Stir in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips and nuts.

Evenly scoop big spoons of dough onto 2 baking sheets, 8 cookies per sheet.  Pat them into a flat circle.  The cookies will grow very little while baking, so make sure you make them as thick or as thin as you want.  I prefer 1/2 inch thick cookies.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 12 or 13 minutes, turn sheet around in oven half way through if your oven is uneven. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and keep making cookies.

These cookies definitely do not last as well as conventional amazing chocolate chip cookies.  They become hard the next day.  And yet, they are still very good!

amazing chocolate chip cookies

I made some chocolate chip cookies before I left Halifax.  Not for Paddy--these are filled with butter and eggs--but for friends going through a hard time.  They are so good, the best medicine I hope.  This is a special request recipe for Kevin, because he says my recipes are too complicated looking.  But really, they are for Katie and Dan, because I am too far away right now and can't bring them over myself.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

based on Carla Rollins' recipe from Gourmet October 2003

Makes 3 dozen cookies

Takes 2 hours (for all the baking and cooling)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)

1/2 c. lightly toasted hazelnuts (or walnuts, or pecans - and really you don't have to toast them), roughly crushed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs.  Beat in vanilla.

Stir in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips and nuts.

Evenly scoop big spoons of dough onto 2 baking sheets, 8 cookies per sheet.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 12 or 13 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and keep making cookies.

NB: I turn my oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit because my oven is very hot.  if yours seems to work for other recipes at the prescribed temperature, then bake these at 350.  Also, my oven is hotter on one side than it is on the other.  I turn my cookies around 6 minutes through the recipe.  The cookies will look a little puffy and undercooked when you take them out.  Fear not!  They will fall and be perfectly done.  This recipe produces a cookie that is firm on the outside, but moist and dense inside.  Not in any way cake-like, not crispy, but the perfect cookie consistency.