Blog

Triple Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies & Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Written by: Georgina Ingham | Posted: 07-01-2016

Well isn’t today exciting? I bring you my new look website and not one, but two cookie recipes to try. Both recipes are gluten-free. Bonus!

Having bought Nigella Lawson’s latest offering Simply Nigella and spent many an hour joyously reading it bookmarking recipes I just had to get baking didn't I? I had a craving for cookies and there are only two recipes for cookies in the book; it would have been ever so wrong not to bake them both wouldn't it? As usual, there are a few adaptations to the original recipes.

As with oats, buckwheat flour is intrinsically gluten-free, however, it is often contaminated by the presence of gluten, depending on the factories in which it is produced. So if you are making these because you need them to be gluten-free, rather than just going for the flavour of the flour, make sure the packet is labelled as gluten-free.

If you’re struggling to get hold of buckwheat flour (though most supermarkets and health food store sell it these days) you can, of course, replace it with plain flour. If you make them with plain flour they are still delightful but then they’re just a cookie, like thousands of others and nothing outstandingly special. With regular plain flour, they won’t get you the wow factor. When they’re made with buckwheat flour, they’re so much more than a bog-standard chocolate cookie. They’re special. They deserve people oohing and ahhing over them. The flavour is deep, nutty and assertive. The texture has the perfect balance between crisp and soft. Plus of course, the nutritional benefits of buckwheat flour are well documented and I do like to try and be a little healthy from time to time; but in reality, I just really want a cookie.

My next bake was flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and Nigella opens her recipe by saying “I can’t seem to stop making these, and as I make them, so they get eaten”. I confess my family weren’t overly taken with the idea of a peanut butter cookie, or peanut butter anything really, but with a jar of peanut butter to use up, I decided to take the bold move of baking them. Sure if all else failed I could take them to work with me, busy nurses are never known to be fussy in the food stakes.

Well, these never got to my workplace, in fact, they never even reached the cookie jar. They were eaten whilst still warm from the oven with glasses of cold, full fat, organic milk. These have to be the peanut butter haters peanut cookie!

Nigella states that “health-food-shop-type” peanut butter doesn’t work here but that’s all I buy so that had to make do and I honestly didn’t have an issue with it.

Sweet, chocolatey, with a saltine tang, how could they not be liked?

Buckwheat Triple Chocolate Cookies

by Georgina Ingham

Adapted from Simply Nigella (Nigella Lawson)

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate chips

125g dark chocolate

50g white chocolate chips

125g buckwheat flour

25g cocoa, sieved

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

60g soft butter

125g soft light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

2 large eggs

Instructions

1. Put the chocolate chips on a plate and place in the freezer whilst you get on with making the batter.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C or the equivalent and line a couple of baking sheets with baking parchment.

3. Roughly chop the dark chocolate into chunks and place it in a bowl over a pan of simmering water to melt.

4. Once melted, set aside to cool a little. In another bowl mix together the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda.

5. In a freestanding mixer (or by hand) cream together the butter and sugar with the vanilla paste until fluffy, then beat in the cooled chocolate and eggs one by one.

6. Once absorbed into the butter and sugar mixture, scrape down the bowl and on a low speed gradually add the dry ingredients.

7. Using a spatula fold in the cold chocolate chips then dollop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 5cm between each one.

8. Bake for 9-10 minutes, until the cookies have just set at the edges but still seem rather uncooked.

9. Remove the tray from the oven and leave the cookies to rest for around 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Details

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Georgina Ingham

Adapted from Simply Nigella (Nigella Lawson)

Ingredients

225g peanut butter

100g soft light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Pinch fine sea salt

1 large egg

75g chocolate chips (I like a mix of milk & white)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a couple of baking trays with baking parchment.

2. In a bowl beat together the peanut butter, sugar, bicarbonate and salt.

3. Beat together the egg and vanilla paste and mix into the peanut butter mixture.Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Scoop out heaped tablespoons of the cookie dough onto the lined baking sheets, leaving them about 5cm apart.

5. Bake for 10 minutes until they are slightly darker around the edges but still look rather uncooked.

6. Leave them on the baking sheet for around 10 minutes as they are incredibly fragile. Then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling, if you can wait that long before eating them!

Details

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Please do head on over to any of my social media sites to join the conversation! And, sharing is caring so feel free to share away or add to your Yummly site recipe box.

So quit “procrastinating” and get thee to the kitchen! A few minutes work and you can indulge in warm cookies, chocolate still melty. Team with the cold milk and it is a heavenly combination indeed.