Chocolate Buckwheat Fudge Cookies

 

For three weeks I’ve been on the move–up the mountain and down again–packing things in one house and unpacking them in another. I haven’t spent more than 5 days in a row in any one place. The only thing that feels like a routine is getting in my car with a bag or two and hitting the road again. I’ve been eating in a utilitarian fashion or out of the house, begrudgingly moving unread recipe blogs to a “read later” folder, and eating more hardboiled eggs, apples and almonds (ie, portable snacks) than I care to think about. Last weekend, having successfully navigated the slippery mountain pass back to my mountain home, I armed myself with groceries and devoted myself to two days in my new (old) kitchen. I made this and this. I perfected the medium boiled egg. I baked. It is not lost on me that I have never posted a recipe involving buckwheat on the blog and for those of you eager to know how to make the fussy little faux-grain delicious, there is more buckwheat on the way. This cookie recipe uses buckwheat flour which has an earthiness and a little more heft to it than wheat flour. One of my all time favorite cookies is from an old Gourmet recipe published in the first edition of The Gourmet Cookbook but impossible to find online for some reason. It’s a fudgy, brownie-like, dark chocolate cookie that is simple to make and impossible to resist. I wanted to make that cookie with less inflammatory ingredients (read, gluten-free, unrefined sweetener) without compromising taste at all. So, it was a vision quest of sorts using super foods and alternative flours. The results were, if I do say so myself, amazing. The cookies came out as fudgy, rich and satisfying as those they sought to emulate, and my body thanked me for the indulgence without the subsequent post-sugar and white flour crash. Best of all, as I melted chocolate, stirred, whisked, and spun around the kitchen in my wool socks, I felt, for the first time in weeks, fully grounded. Home.

Chocolate Buckwheat Fudge Cookies

makes about 3 dozen cookies

8oz good quality dark chocolate (at least 60%) roughly chopped

4 1/2 T olive oil

2 eggs

3/4 cup coconut palm sugar

1/4 cup buckwheat flour

3/4 cup almond meal

1 1/2 t vanilla extract

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t sea salt

1 t Maca Root powder (optional)

1/2 cup dried tart cherries, chopped (optional)

Maldon or other flaky sea salt to finish

Place the chocolate in a metal bowl or the top part of a double boiler. Bring a few inches of water barely to a boil in a small pot and place the metal bowl on top, stirring often to melt the chocolate. Once chocolate is completely melted, remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In a large bowl whisk together the flours, salt, baking powder and Maca powder.

In another bowl, beat the eggs for about a minute. Add sugar and whisk another 6 minutes or so until the eggs have tripled in volume. Whisk in the vanilla and olive oil. Add the chocolate and whisk until just combined.

Add the chocolate and egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until well combined. Gently stir in the cherries. The dough will be looser than your typical cookie dough.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

10 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a tablespoon and slightly damp hands, roll the dough into small balls and place about an inch apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Press a few flakes of Maldon into the top of each cookie and bake 8-10 minutes. Let cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.