Cookie Monster

(Guilty as charged.)

If you're wondering why I spend so much time thinking about and trying to bake cookies, well, it's because I love love love cookies.  Love them.  So yesterday, after a long and labored conversation with a fellow cookie baker, I decided to try a different tack. 

Instead of whole-wheat flour, which, I learned last week, creates a cookie with the density of a steel ball, I used the finer ground whole-wheat pastry variety.  Pastry flour, like cake flour, works well in pastries but can't be substituted for things like bread and pizza dough.  It's too light and airy to be substantial. 

This time, my cookies came out much better.  I substituted all of the flour in the Toll House recipe for pastry flour.  I used half of the butter required and substituted the rest with unsweetened applesauce.  Dark agave nectar, twice as sweet as regular refined sugar, did the job of both white and brown sugars, cutting the sweetening agent down by half.  I did add, for consistency's sake, a teaspoon of evaporated cane sugar, an unprocessed natural sugar found at health food stores everywhere.  Note to bakers: when you cream together butter and agave nectar, it does not reach that buttery consistency you're accustomed to seeing in regular cookies.  Even when you add the eggs, the dough can look off.  But as soon as you add in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder), the dough comes together like any other dough.  

Chips go in last.  I eliminated walnuts this time around.  This dough was looser than the last two doughs I've made, a good thing.  When spooned onto the baking sheet (when you're using less butter, you'll want to spray your sheet first with a non-cooking spray), they begin to spread out a little, a harbinger of more normal cookiedom.  

This version cooked on the lower end of the 9-11 minute suggested Toll House time (375), browning at just about nine minutes.  They aren't exactly chewy, but they do have an airy quality that I like.  As for the sugar, flavor would never cue that it's missing.  Texturally, they're a little softer than normal cookies, but you'd never know that most of the bad stuff had been eliminated.  

My friend wrote about her peanut butter oatmeal cookies the other day and added a disclaimer to her post.  She wrote that although her cookies were a healthier version, "they do not fight the flu, they do not help you lose inches from your waistline, they will not improve your digestion... but they do taste damn good.  So eat 2 or 3 of them, not 12 or 13."  

I'm going to have to agree with that philosophy.  These cookies, though less evil than most, are still 130 calories a pop, so you don't want to eat all 32 in a sitting, unless you're looking to fit into those pants you relegated to the back of the closet five years ago (yes, your fat pants).  Refined sugars cause cravings, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.  The sugar in refined versions converts to fat because it's an immediate kick without long-lasting energy potential, not far off from the white bread/wheat bread equivalent.  In the 1900s, sugar cane farmers noted that island natives who chewed on sugar cane daily did not develop diabetes, whereas cane farmers who ate the processed result daily developed diabetes almost 80 percent of the time.  Diabetes is one of the great preventable diseases and it's also a disease that afflicts more--and not fewer--Americans every year, despite our knowledge of what causes it and how to keep from developing it.  

So no, eating my cookies will not make you skinny and if you're sick they aren't the equivalent to bed rest and Vitamin C.  But if you're the type of person who can't imagine a world without cookies (me, me, me!), these cookies could help you live a little healthier. 

And just one more note about refined sugar, before I hit the trails for the Bronx Half-Marathon.  Ever since I decided to eliminate most refined sugars from my diet, I've been having strange dreams.  Two in particular have found me in homes with stockpiles of candies and chocolates, unable to control myself.   I have always had vivid dreams, ever since I was a little girl, but usually they point to something going on in my life.  When I prepared to go to Belize in 2000, I took a six-week regimen of Malaria pills, which provoked psychedelic dreams.  Before a major race, I generally dream that I've slept through my alarm clock.  But this week, my dreams have centered on sugar binges, the kind one can only justify around Halloween.  Internet research provided a somewhat questionable answer to why my dreams had changed: according to some, sugar withdrawal can create effects similar to opiate withdrawal, causing headaches, muscle pains, debilitating cravings, and strange dreams.  

Basically, if the Internet holds any validity, I was addicted to heroin and didn't even know it.  Food for thought.  

Is It Possible To Make A Healthy Cookie That Doesn't Suck?

You're all probably thinking that my answer is an unequivocal yes here, but the jury's still out. Fool around with whole-wheat flour for a few days and you, too, will learn that there's a trade off for making things brown. Whole-wheat flour is more dense and will turn even the most delicate of cookie recipes into a scone-like consistency. And I don't mean that in a good way.

My first experiment was an adaptation of a vegan recipe. Vegans, however, don't eat chocolate, since it generally has milk in it, so they supplant chocolate chips with carob chips. That's going too far, even for me, so I used the recipe with real chocolate chips. Three cups of whole-wheat flour (this seemed like a lot; I should have known better) goes into a mixing bowl with a teaspoon of baking powder. Wet ingredients, which included unsweetened applesauce (one cup), agave nectar (one cup), and vanilla extract (two teaspoons) were mixed separately and then integrated into the dry. I used my hands to create the dough and used my hands again to incorporate one cup of chocolate chips and one cup of chopped walnuts.

Wheat flour prevents cookies from spreading, so if you don't spread them by hand (and stupidly, I didn't), what you get is a brown exterior and a play-doughy, undercooked interior. I know that this is more the dough, which seemed too chewy even when I dropped it onto the cookie sheet. I threw the whole batch away.

Pluses of this baking disaster? The batter contains no eggs, which means that you can eat it without fear of contracting salmonella. Also, the dearth of creamable wet ingredients makes this a stand mixer-free recipe, so if you have no dishwasher (yours truly), you'll have fewer things to wash.

Minuses: even if you are a dough-eater, like me, you wouldn't want to eat this gummy concoction. And the cookies were inedible. Truly.

Round two. I decided to adapt the recipe on the back of the Toll House package for healthier purposes. Instead of a combination of white and brown sugars, I used dark agave nectar. Agave nectar is roughly twice as sweet as regular sugar. You have to cream the butter together (yes, in a stand mixer) with butter. Recipe calls for two sticks (otherwise known as 16 tablespoons), so I used 16 tablespoons of Smart Balance, a low-cholesterol butter substitute that very much resembles butter. Smart Balance is salted so I skipped the teaspoon of salt with the dry ingredients. I'm not sure whether or not that was wise. I don't think, however, that salt has anything to do with the leavening properties of baking powder.

Because the agave nectar isn't granulated like sugar, the butter and nectar don't cream together quite right. Oh well. I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and two eggs anyway. To that, I slowly beat in the dry ingredients that I have mixed on the side: a one-to-one ratio of wheat flour to white flour (two and a quarter cups total) and one teaspoon of baking powder. The dough that forms looks and tastes more like a normal cookie dough. I add the chocolate chips (one cup) and walnuts (one cup) by hand.

I notice, after a few minutes in a 375 degree oven that, once again, the cookies aren't spreading. I guess a cup and an eighth of wheat flour goes a long way. I decided to pull the cookies out and flatten them with the back of a spoon. This worked a little better, but the chips on top got all mangled so that, by the end, they looked more like chocolate chunk cookies than the pictures on the front of the Toll House bag.

They are still a bit doughy on the inside but a vast improvement over my previous attempt at veganism. And by my rough calculations, they come to a paltry 120 calories a pop, worth it if they're yummy and completely not worth it if they suck.

I think my conclusion is this: if you're looking to make pastry healthier, don't. Either eat them or don't, both at your own peril. But making bad cookies is way worse than not making cookies at all.

Burger And Beer Nite

When my personal trainer learned of my plans to participate in Burger and Beer Night on the upper west side, the first things she said to me was, "don't eat the French fries."  As if holding back on the fries would in any way mitigate the fat and calories consumed by the burger and beer.  Anyway, she would be proud.  By the time my burger arrived at Community Food and Juice, the hand-cut, skin-on fries were of little concern.  

Even though Community Food and Juice lies smack in Columbia University territory, and even though school is out of session until Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and even though last night marked one of the coldest of the year, Community was packed.  Like many other restaurants aiming to beat the recession, Community has recently added a burger promotion to their menu: on Thursday nights, from 6-7 pm, you can get a farm-raised burger, fries, and a beer for a paltry $15.  We missed the bargain, which made it easier to consider the rest of the menu.  Comfort foods, from macaroni and cheese to panko-breaded chicken abound.  For the health-conscious, Community offers a selection of rice bowls and veggies.  

But we came for burgers, so burgers it was.  To start, we ordered a flatbread pizza topped with two cheeses and fat slices of duck bacon.  And then... the burgers.  Community serves their patties on glossy, buttered, brioche-like rolls.  Accoutrements include house-made sweet pickles, caramelized onions, white cheddar (which I skipped) and watercress.  I could have used a tomato, but 'tis not the season.  Anyway, the patty is full-flavored enough to enjoy in a minimalist manner.  

In lieu of beer, I enjoyed a bourbon apple cobbler, basically a strong marriage of bourbon and fresh cider, garnished with a slice of green apple.  Community places an emphasis of locally sourced and fresh foods, evidenced by their clever drink list.  Even the cranberry margarita comes with real cranberry juice, a departure from the burgundy stuff to which we've grown accustomed.  

For dessert, we sampled both the chocolate and butterscotch puddings, as well as the warm cookie plate.  Butterscotch pudding was tasty but watery and unset.  The dish's best feature was its accompanying toffee chips.  Chocolate pudding, on the other hand, was firm, rich, dark, and garnished with chocolate whipped cream and shaved chocolate.  We made a parfait from the remains.  Chocolate chip cookies were better than Toll House, served three to a plate, still warm. My trainer would be proud to hear that I was too full to do much damage; I didn't even finish dessert.

*

Community Food and Juice

2893 Broadway

New York, NY 10025

212.665.2800

Chillin Out, Maxin, Relaxin All Cool...

Ten points for whomever can identify the title quote.

I went to Carroll Gardens last night to have someone cook for me, a nice change of pace. I had plans to hit up Spicy and Tasty in Flushing but they fell through. Getting people to commit to Flushing is really hard, let me tell you.

First, I ended up at the apartment of a friend of a friend of a friend. Apartment resident baked fresh chocolate chip cookies. I am a complete and total sucker for chocolate chip cookies. Baker in question said the reason his cookies were so good was because he dissolved his baking soda in hot water beforehand. Maybe that's true, or maybe it was the butter and sugar and chocolate chips. Either way, I don't care. I had two before dinner. Growing up, that would have scored me a night without television.

Next, I allowed my friend to cook for me while I drank Gigondas with his wife. He made French onion soup topped with stale bread and Gruyere in ramekins browned under the broiler, the ultimate comfort food. I guess he had wasted an afternoon making a homemade veal stock, which he swore to me he would never do again; too much time for too little reward. The soup was rich and meaty but I'm not sure I wouldn't have been just as satisfied with a store-bought beef stock base. I'm just saying.

After the soup, ricotta meatballs braised in milk. I'm not sure what meat he used. Probably veal. He also chopped up some cornichon and threw it in there for some texture. Meatballs were silky, not at all overdone. Very delicious.

And finally, a heaping portion of Alsacian choucroute: sausage, sauerkraut, ham hock. It came served with a whole grain mustard and a spicy yellow mustard. Also very delicious, but nothing to scoff at after the soup and meatballs. I'm sure I left Brooklyn a little heavier. You can't win them all.

We skipped dessert. The cookies had done the trick. Maybe next week he'll make me something else. It's nice having friends who cook.