Saturday, January 16, 2010

waffled cookies

Experimentation is a wonderful thing. Getting inspired by other recipes and other folks leads to new ideas and new ways of thinking. One of new finds is Waffleizer. By a guy named Dan it was created to answer the all important question, "Will it waffle?" So far the answer seems to be absolutely.

The most recent post was about making s'moreffles - waffled s'mores. What a great concept. Even more amazing was the recipe he shared from Lauren Pett of Rich Chocolates for making waffled graham cracker type cookies. I immediately fell in love with this idea. Aside from my husband's grandmother's Gaufres Liegois, which I make in my Belgian-style waffle maker, I had never really considered waffling cookies before. These call for a standard waffle iron (I confess I own both).

I made a batch of cookies and it has turned out to be a big hit! They're crisp, tasty, and definitely one for the repetoire. I made a couple of changes and my recipe is listed below, I do plan to make a couple more changes. I switched the flour for fresh ground hard white flour and used sucanat instead of brown sugar. I plan to try turbinado sugar the next time because it has more moisture. Because of the sucanat they came out much darker, I may have the same issue with turbinado sugar but won't know until I try it. The whole grain flour has so much more fiber that I'm sure it is making the cookies denser than the original recipe. While it's still delicious I am considering borrowing a concept from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking baking book and use a modest amount of all-purpose flour.

The cookies are very soft when they come out of the waffle iron which makes them perfect for molding into shapes and my family is eagerly awaiting the next batch which we want to turn into bowls for ice cream. I did learn that getting them to the correct thickness is key. Too thick and they do not have the correct crunch to them. Too thin and they are very dark.

The original recipe can be found here.

Whole Grain Waffled Grahams

2 C. fresh ground hard white flour
1 C. sucanat
1 t. baking soda
3/4 t. sea salt
7 T. organic butter, cut into pieces, chilled
1/3 C. honey
5 T. organic whole milk
2 T. vanilla extract
pinch cinnamon

mix the dry ingredients
in a separate bowl, whisk the milk, honey and vanilla
add the butter to the dry ingredients pulse in food processor until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal
add the milk mixture to the flour mixture until a dough forms
wrap in plastic and chill for at least two hours, or overnight

on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough so that it's just over a quarter of an inch thick
I rolled the dough to the size of my waffle maker however you can also punch out or cut out the dough into squares, about 4 inches on each side

waffle the dough, waffle iron heat varies; check the dough after about three minutes
using a fork, pull out of waffle iron and either shape immediately or let rest on a rack (will firm up as it cools)

Enjoy!

PS Sorry, no photos. My not-so-great camera finally gave up the ghost. I went out and bought a new camera which is charging. However I do not think the cookies will last long enough to be photographed.

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