Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

I read a few food blogs regularly. Most of the time, they are a welcome distraction to what I should be doing. I love the visually beautiful photos, the stories behind the dishes, or just the plain inspiration for tonight's dinner.



Occasionally, these different blogs will start to talk about the same thing. A hype perhaps, but you can just sense that whatever the subject matter they are talking about has caught the wild fire in the food blog world. For instance, the No-Knead Bread took off like a jet plane. And then there was this wholewheat chocolate chip cookie thing that I wanted to ignore. Why? Because the regular white nutrition-less flour chocolate chip cookies taste just fine. I didn't want to be deterred. I already bake bread with whole wheat flour. Our pizza dough also gets a good amount of the healthier stuff. No need to go that way for cookies, thank you.



Intrigued, I was. So I allowed the concept to stick around, an option to go that way if I wanted to someday. Sure enough, that day came when I had to bring a little something to a dessert potluck recently. I was going to make Molly's tried-and-true cake since I had some lemons around the house. To my surprise, I had no regular unbleached flour left! Not even one cup of it. What I found in the pantry was a bag full of whole wheat flour. That was not going to make Molly proud.

So instead of the cake, I remembered Molly's post about the said cookies. I had all the other ingredients for it, so that would have to be the dessert of choice.

It was easy enough.  Basically, instead of using the white flour, you substitute with whole wheat flour. The recipe asks for baking powder, which is also different, but perhaps it helps balance the (heavier) weight of the whole wheat flour.

Out of the oven, I asked the kids to be my tasters. As sincere as you would like to hear about anything you make from scratch, they sang unanimously: They are great, Mommy! They taste just like the real thing! 

Well, they are the real thing, my children. And perhaps they will now be our go-to recipe (when we don't have any white flour in the pantry).

Below is the recipe I used, from Molly's blog. She also got it from yet another source. See what I mean about the food blog wild fire?

Whole What Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½-inch pieces, or bittersweet chips

Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. (If you have no parchment, you can butter the sheets.)

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, and whisk to blend.

Put the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low speed, mix just until the butter and sugars are blended, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the bowl, and blend on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the chocolate, and mix on low speed until evenly combined. (If you have no stand mixer, you can do all of this with handheld electric beaters and/or a large, sturdy spoon.) Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then use your hands to turn and gently massage the dough, making sure all the flour is absorbed.

Scoop mounds of dough about 3 tablespoons in size onto the baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie. (I was able to fit about 8 cookies on each sheet, staggering them in three rows.)

Bake the cookies for 16 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the cookies are evenly browned. Transfer the cookies, still on parchment, to a rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.

These cookies are very good while still warm from the oven, but I find that you can taste the wheat more – in a good way – once they’ve cooled.

Yield: about 20 cookies

Bierberg Bakery

You can see this same post here.

I might have found another favorite spot in the city.



It's been such a cold stretch, and I have had a sick child home with me the last few days. Now that he is back in school, I had a bunch of errands I needed to do out and about.



Before I headed out the door, I made a note to myself that a stop at this (infamous) little hidden gem had to be on my itinerary.



The secret about this tiny German bakery is no longer, especially if you have seen the article in the new Winter issue of Edible Columbus. Surprisingly, however, many people still don't know about it. Take the two people I asked for directions at Katzinger's who looked at me like I had three heads.

No matter, I put in the address into my GPS and a few minutes later, I was parked in front of a well signed and decorated, yet unassuming, store front: Bierberg Bakery.

An older German lady greeted me. She had a thick accent still, even though she and her husband moved here since the 60s. As I entered and regained my senses from the freezing cold temperatures (really Columbus, why so cold?!), I started to take in all the scents and smells of all the cookies that laid before me.

I did not count, but there must have been a few dozen different kinds of cookies. These special German cookies are only made here, in this tiny house, 3 months out of every year. Johanna, owner and baker, told me how busy they had been and will continue to be until the end of the year when she will again close up shop and retreat to her much deserved rest.

After I purchased some good-looking cookies, as well as a stollen, I asked if I could slip into the kitchen and watched them work a little.

Another lady in the kitchen, Cathy, is a family-friend. She helps out each year at the bakery. While Johanna and Cathy cut up more cookies to be baked, they recited to me their stories of how they ended up in Columbus (because you know, as a transplant myself, I am always interested!).

As it turns out, they were both sponsored to move to the States from Europe, Johanna from Germany and Cathy from Hungary. I listened with curiosity as Cathy told me the story about her family living in a castle in Germany where several other immigrant families took refuge.  Their hands never stopped working, but they seemed to enjoy reliving their past with me as their audience.

As I turned around to say goodbye, they wished me well in discovering my new home city. I told them that I was happy to have met people like them because that is what matters the most. Johanna agreed with me, and then she added: It's also what you give back, too. That's also very important. Don't forget to give back."

She is absolutely right.

Bierberg Bakery
729 S 5th St.
Columbus, OH

They will be open until the end of the year.

Post Halloween Blondies

I may not be excited about Halloween, but I won't ever say no to a piece of blondie!

What's a blondie? Well, think of it as a brownie that tastes a little like chocolate chip cookie! Now do you still question my love for blondies?

So, despite our efforts to get rid of as much Halloween candy as possible (by giving it away to others), we are still left with handfuls of stuff around here. This recipe is a good way of getting rid of some of that stuff! You can add any kind of chocolate covered candy you would like. Here, we used Kit Kat Bars and Twix (we don't like nuts in our cookies/ brownies, but don't tell Jim that!).

Post Halloween Blondies

Wet ingredients
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg

Dry Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped up Halloween candy (we used Twix and Kit Kat bars here)
several small marshmallows on top for decoration

Preheat oven 375 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix wet ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together before adding it to the wet ingredients. Add the chopped candy and mix well. Grease an 8x8 baking pan and fill with the batter, making sure to spread it evenly. Sprinkle marshmallows on top.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 minutes before cutting into squares. Served warm with a glass of milk or a cup of tea! Happy non-Halloween!

Choco-Oatmeal Cookies

I am not a great recipe follower. Actually, I am a really bad one, you can ask my husband. But when it comes to baking, one should (or needs) to follow a recipe down to science. Or so I was told.

Along the way, I got a recipe for Chocolate chip cookies from my mother-in-law. I asked her if she had a 'half' recipe for these cookies since the usual ones you find will make so many cookies that more of them go into my own tummy than anybody else's (and that's never good). Plus, everybody would agree that cookies are best fresh out of the oven. So the more cookies made in the same batch, the less fresh the uneaten-right-away ones are.

Cut to the chase. I have been using this 'half' recipe for a while now and trying to follow everything as best I can. Today, of course, my usual non-recipe self said I should substitute a little oatmeal for the 2 extra Tablespoon of flour asked for.

It satisfies my creative-baker self, and I think it still tastes great. Here is the revised recipe, if you are interested. And if you would rather use the original recipe, just substitute the 2 Tablespoons flour instead of the oatmeal... And if I remember right, there is something about 1 Tablespoon water, too...But I have never really used that. See what I mean?

Choco-Oatmeal Cookies

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 lb unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry ingredients:

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Set oven at 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk wet ingredients together until smooth. In another bowl, combine dry ingredients together before adding it to the wet ingredients until all blended. Spoon small balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet.

Bake about 9-11 minutes until light brown. Longer if you like your cookies crisper. I usually like mine on the chewy side. Eat warm with a cup of tea or coffee...or a cold glass of milk for your children (or your Mid-western husband).