Friday, December 19, 2008

The End of Another Year's Cookies

I'm going to blame the weather... I've been "off" any sort of social activity the past couple days, and no doubt the thousand centimetres of snow we've been getting today are not helping matters in the least. Top it off with a bout of extreme exhaustion and you have me still needing to finish gift-wrapping, pen pal letter-writing (something I've been meaning to do since April... sorry Jodi!), blanket-knitting and bread- pie- tart- and (more) cookie-baking! I'm hoping that the craptastic weather lets up soon so that Andrew can come in as the backup cavalry and do things for help me while I'm "low". At least he'll get some more good eatin' out of the deal!

I actually used part of this recipe to "pay him off" last weekend when he helped me make the gazillion other batches of cookies I did, and as far as I can tell he enjoyed them thoroughly... I mean, they have raisins, Craisins, chocolate chips and hazelnuts in them for Pete's sake! Top it off with the fact that they're wheat-free (they do have gluten though... it's spelt flour) and vegan for a great (and pretty healthy!) mid-holiday-preparations snack.

The original recipe for these cookies was written by Dreena Burton, who made them with pecans, chocolate chips, almond extract and dried cherries. Well, I liked the idea of her recipe but I didn't have half those ingredients - so I turned the recipe on it's head. These were the last "different" batch of cookies I made for this holiday season, though I still have some "remake" batches to do this weekend... namely at least another batch of both these and these babies! I figured they would be a fitting cap-off to Susan's Christmas Cookie Event, and my last submission to this year's roundup (find it here). It's actually my submission to Food Network Canada's Cooking Club Event for December too - they posted 12 different holiday recipes on Food for Thought to choose from and I think I picked a winner! You can check out that rundown(and ongoing photo submissions) on Flickr if you're interested.

Stay tuned... the holiday sweets season is coming to a (thoroughly baked) conclusion soon!

Dreena Inspired Drop Cookies
Makes 16
1 cup spelt flour
1/3 cup ground hazelnuts
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup chocolate chips
*Note: I threw in about 2 tbsp of peanuts I had in my pantry, but they weren't part of the original plan... I was scavenging!*
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F, line baking sheets with parchment or Silpat.
  2. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
  3. Separately, mix syrup with the vanilla and oil.
  4. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined.
  5. Add cranberries, raisins, and chocolate chips; mix in well.
  6. Bake 11 minutes, until just golden (do not overbake!).
    Let cool on the sheet for no more than 1 minute before moving to a cooling rack.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 96.3
Total Fat: 5.2 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 2.6 mg
Total Carbs: 13.3 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.5 g
Protein: 0.4 g

2 comments :

  1. You have made a gazillion cookies, and now you have earned a much deserved rest. Go sleep, watch movies, and eat cookies with Andrew. And have your a very Merry Christmas, Sarah. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!