All that and a bag of chips. Except, you know, without the chips.
Posted by Celine on May 5, 2008
Is there anything a chocolate chip cookie can’t do? I didn’t think so.
But before I get started on these ones (the recipe is at the very bottom of this page), here’s a list of a few things I had fun with this weekend:
- Vegan Bacon from VegWeb: quite crispy when sliced thinly and left to cool down. wonderful to have in a freshly baked roll along with some sliced avocado! granted, Lightlife’s tempeh bacon is still number one in my book, but this recipe is pretty nifty to have around when you’re in a pinch.
- Breakfast today: the sweetest teeth out there might find this to be a bit lacking. I’ll add a touch of cinnamon and maybe even just a drop of maple syrup the next time I make it. I played it on the safe side and just prepared what I needed: about 1 T crunchy natural PB and the same quantity of pumpkin purée.
- Tamarind Wild Rice with Brown Sugar & Chile Tamarind Pieces: adapted from V-con’s recipe, but using an 8oz bag of uncooked wild rice for it, upping the liquid to 2 1/3 cups, throwing in a few chopped pieces of that Trader Joe’s tamarind stuff I like so much, and preparing it all in a rice cooker. I only cooked the medium shallot I used, as well as the other spices, in a small saucepan with 1 T coconut oil and threw it all in the cooker before actually getting started with the rice.
Verdict of the adaptation? I have trouble putting my fork down in between bites, it’s so good.
Back to the cookies, finally: I decided I needed to make these Vegetarian Times’ Chocolate Chip Spelt Cookies again, and thought I might as well post the downsized recipe here, for 2 big cookies (think store-bought size):
preheat oven to 375F. prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. I actually used the toaster oven again and didn’t even coat the sheet with anything, it worked out fine.
3 T crunchy natural peanut butter
3 T pure maple syrup
1/4 t pure vanilla extract
whisk all these ingredients in a medium bowl.
1/4 cup + 1/2 T light spelt flour (spoon and level for the cup, scoop and level for the T)
1/8 t baking soda
pinch sea salt
2 T semisweet chocolate chips
whisk together in a small bowl, add to wet ingredients and stir until well combined.
separate dough into two, flatten it to about 1/2-inch thickness: the cookies will flatten down just a little bit while baking.
bake for 12-15 minutes, you want them to be golden brown and set. let cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes. finish to cool on rack.
May 5, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You know that I’d be all over those Pumpkin Carob Muffins :0)
May 5, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Good Land that is a nice lookin’ cookie. Thanks for sharing!
May 5, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Yum! Those cookies look like they’re from a coffee shop!
May 5, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Pumpkin carob?! Sounds delicious! Mmmmm… cookies tonight, I think!
May 5, 2008 at 7:13 pm
That gorgeous cookie at the beginnig og the entry is calling me :-P I’m so hungry that I can eat this pc right now!
Thanks for the recipe!
Silvia
May 5, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I love the idea of a 2 cookie recipe!
May 5, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Celine honey..I’ve come back here to apologise with you for my bad english ! I’m so sorry and I’m perfectly aware that italian is very hard to understand if you don’t practice it frequently!…:-P i know I’m quite a riot! And the funniest thing is that I’m exactly as you read me on my blog..a mess :-)
Thanks darling
Silvia
May 5, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Yummy! Big cookies. Looks great and so do those carob muffins!
May 5, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I love the downsized cookie recipe. Thank you so much! I love to cook, but I usually don’t have enough ingredients (and thus money, haha) to do it on a daily basis. This definitely helps.
May 5, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’ve been curious about the bacon recipe, I need to try it one of these days!
May 5, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Great idea to make 2 cookies–that way, if you eat the whole batch, no guilt! I also liked the PB/pumpkin spread. I used to eat baked sweet potato topped with warm PB for brekkie–seems very similar.
May 5, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Wow everything looks delicious! Let us know how those pumpkin carob muffins taste!
May 5, 2008 at 11:41 pm
yes!!! thanks for the small-batch cookie recipe - i always bake this way and will be trying these for sure.
and oh my goodness! that pumpkin peanut butter sandwich sounds freakin’ awesome. you know, you feed yourself really well.
May 5, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Oooo, I love spelt flour…must give these a go.
May 6, 2008 at 1:20 am
I’m so happy to find your blog. What gorgeous photos. And the smoky corn pie from previously looks divine.
May 6, 2008 at 4:11 am
can you substitute the maple syrup for anything else? agave? brown sugar? all i have is sugar-free syrup which i have a feeling will not work… thanks for the recipe, these look and sound fantastic!
May 6, 2008 at 4:14 am
the cookies look great! I like that you baked them in the toaster oven, I’ll have to remember that trick.
May 6, 2008 at 8:30 am
no need to apologize, Silvia! your English is just perfect, so quit feeling bad about it. :)
chloe: I have never tried these with anything other than maple syrup [well, I only made them twice after all!], but I think that if you were to use brown sugar, you’d have to up the liquid content a bit by maybe adding some soy milk in. agave nectar could work too although it has a tendency to have baked goods brown up a bit, so if you were to go that route, lower the temp to 350F and keep an eye on your goodies so that they don’t burn up.
thanks Lisa! for finding me so that I could find YOU too. ha!
baked potato with PB for b-fast, Ricki? I love that idea!
thank you everyone for taking the time to leave little old me a comment!
May 6, 2008 at 9:57 am
I can’t thank you enough for reducing the recipes. I’m perpetually cooking for one and it’s such a pain in the tuchas to try to do the math myself :P
seriously - this is an utter lifesaver! thanks again
May 6, 2008 at 11:54 am
I love the background/surface the cookies are on, it looks pretty. And so do the cookies themselves! I am really tempted to try that recipe as it won’t leave me with a whole batch of cookies that I’ll probably end up eating all by myself, either.
May 6, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I am starting do you your trick of minimizing the recipe so that I only get 3 or 4 cookies out of it so I don’t go insane on the cookie front. Great idea. These chocolate chip cookies look awesome and in spelt too! And no refined sugars! Brilliant. And I just can’t think of anything to say about the carob pumpkin muffins other than NOMNOMNOMNOM. Great job as usual Celine!
May 6, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I make small batches of cookies all the time but I’ve never cut down a recipe to just 2! They sound really good, I’m going to try them with crunchy sunbutter (sunflower seed butter).
May 7, 2008 at 6:22 pm
thanks for the promt response! im not sure how much brown sugar to use, so maybe i will try with agave.
also, is there a different result using all-purpose flour instead of spelt?
May 7, 2008 at 6:29 pm
well, usually it’s customary to use a touch less all purpose flour than spelt. from 2 T-1/4 cup less. but maybe it’d be wiser to go for a whole different kind of cookie, chloe, since you have to make so many changes to the recipe anyway?
May 8, 2008 at 3:33 am
I shouldn’t be looking here while hungry.
I wonder if work will pay me to go home, so I can bake these?
May 10, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Hi,
What makes chocolate and choc. chips vegan? I looked at two bags of Whole Foods brand of chocolate chips and the specified “vegan” seem to have the same ingredients. Cocoa butter is from the cocoa? I know some semi-sweet chocolate has milk added.
May 10, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I don’t really understand your question, elizabeth: it seems you already know the answer to it, from what I read in your comment. indeed, there can be milk or butterfat added to chocolate chips, which makes them be not vegan. cocoa butter on the other hand is definitely vegan.
May 27, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I have three favorite desserts in the entire world. One of them is the giant peanut butter cookie from the Chicago Diner. So, I just made these spelt cookies… And they taste JUST LIKE my beloved Chicago Diner cookie, only your version is even better because it has chocolate chips too.
So basically I am in love with these cookies; they are perfect in every way and everyone should make them now. I even used the downsized recipe so there would be just two huge cookies, one for me and one for my sister. (Except I made one cookie significantly larger — mine, hehe!)
May 27, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I love the way you think, Ruby, and I’m so happy that you found a match for your favorite cookie in the world!