from Kris B.

Quinoa Peanut Butter Cookies

When you put the words peanut butter, chocolate, and cookie all in the title of one recipe, you’ve got my attention!  I have to say, though, that the quinoa flour was a “player” that I really knew nothing about. I have eaten it as a side dish with savory meals and enjoyed its grain-like texture and nutty flavor.  Quinoa, however, is not a grain, but a seed from a vegetable that is botanically related to spinach, swiss chard, and beets.  Cookies with peanut butter, chocolate, and vegetables…I was willing to give them a try!
Knowing nothing about quinoa flour and its properties in baking, I decided to do a little research.  Interestingly, in this article by the King Arthur Flour, the test bakers worked with substituting quinoa flour for a portion of the all-purpose flour in some of their familiar recipes.  The substitutions ranged from 25-50 percent for the quinoa flour.  The test recipes were for pancakes, scones, quick breads, and muffins.  None was for cookies and none used 100% quinoa flour.  In fact, this article even said that using too much quinoa flour yields a dry final product.  When I read this, I got a little worried because peanut butter cookies run the risk of being dry using the normal all-purpose flour and this recipe for Quinoa Peanut Butter cookies uses only quinoa flour.  Armed with all of this information and an open mind, I set out to try this recipe.
The making/baking process is no different from any other cookie recipe.  The wet ingredients and sugar…

• • vegetable shortening
  • creamy peanut butter
  • cup brown sugar, lightly packed
  • large egg
  • water
  • honey
  • vanilla extract

…are creamed together.  The dry ingredients…

• quinoa flour
• baking soda
• salt

…are whisked together in a separate bowl and added to the wet.  Once combined, bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks are stirred in.

The dough is then scooped by tablespoon onto parchment lined baking sheets, flattened slightly, and baked for 11-13 minutes.

Because my oven almost always requires the maximum baking time, and often then some, I baked my cookies for the full thirteen minutes.  Even with that, they seemed not quite done.  Because of the warning about too much quinoa flour resulting in a dry finished product, I decided that underdone and soft cookies were preferable to overdone and dr ones.  The recipe also warns that once out of the oven, the cookies are fragile until completely cooled; so, allow them to cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet. This made me a bit skeptical because fragile cookies are usually dry and crumbly.  Did I mention that I really don’t care for dry crispy peanut butter cookies!

I was pleasantly surprised!!!  These cookies are fabulous…not dry and crumbly at all!  In fact, their texture is almost cake-like, soft and chewy.  Mine may be slightly underbaked, but they are not doughy.  And more importantly, they are not dry and crumbly.  This is definitely a keeper recipe!

The taste is not noticeably different from “normal” peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, but these are a gluten-free cookie, a dietary option that is becoming more and more necessary.  And even if you don’t have to eat gluten-free, “quinoa is one of the only plant foods that is a complete protein, offering all the essential amino acids.”

Cookies with some redeeming nutritional value…I’m in!

Give them a try.  I don’t think that you will be disappointed!

from Tracey G

Brownie Crisps from King Arthur Flour

I love making brownies from scratch, so it’s kind of fun when I find a variation on the traditional brownie theme: enter the Brownie Crisps recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. They are a super fun twist on the usual brownie suspect – they’re the equivalent of the just-the-muffin-tops kind of thing, but in brownie form!

They are so yummy and easy. They have the some of the crispiness but also a chewy texture that I absolutely adore. The first thing Jeremy asked me when he tasted them was if they were from a mix – not because he thought they tasted like a mix, but because he wanted to know if it was recipe so I could make them often! He was ever so happy to find out that they could be made whenever, and he’s been asking me since I made them if they’ve had their photos taken yet, so he could get the green-light to eat at will! 😀

As I said, they are easy – I had everything on hand to make them, which always makes me happy when that happens. And it’s stuff I have on hand all the time, nothing special really.

Here’s the list of ingredients:

• King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• salt
• baking soda
• egg whites
• sugar
• cocoa powder
• espresso powder, optional, for enhanced chocolate flavor
• vegetable oil
• vanilla extract
• Baker’s Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk powder
• chocolate chips, divided

That’s it. And since I’m still watching my cholesterol (forever it seems), I was really encouraged to see that it only involved egg whites and vegetable oil as the fat – not butter.

There’s an order to mixing it, but it’s nothing too complicated and I did it all by hand, no mixer required.

First you whisk together the flour, salt & baking soda and you set that aside. In another bowl, you beat the egg whites until frothy. To the now frothy egg whites you add the sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, vanilla and oil. And mix until blended (for this step, I actually combined the sugar, cocoa powder and espresso powder together in another bowl to make it easy to add to the eggs). Once that’s blended, you whisk in the milk powder then flour mixture. At this point, you stir in half of the chocolate chips.

Now you’re set to get it on your pan. You use a sheet pan, ungreased, with parchment paper on it that IS greased. (I used my favorite spray from KAF, Vegalene Food Release Spray because it absolutely does not leave a sticky residue on my good pans like the leading supermarket brands seem to do, and for $10.95 it’s a really big can!) Once your parchment is ready, you spread the batter on as thin as you possibly can, then sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips over it. This is what mine looked like before it was ready to do into the oven:

Now it goes into a 325°F oven for about 20 minutes. You then remove it from the oven, cut it into pieces, and, without disturbing them, (for example separating the pieces), you pop it back into the oven and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven for the final time and allow to cool on the pan, then separate the pieces and enjoy!

This recipe, needless to say is a serious keeper – it is so easy and you can have it done in no time at all. Which, most days is my kind of recipe! Give them a try!