You will never find health food masquerading as dessert on this website, but I freely admit that some of my recipes are more nutritious than others. For instance, these Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies are made with 100% whole wheat flour, so they have more protein and fiber than your average cookie, along with some nutty whole grain flavor. They’re also full of butter, brown sugar and chocolate though, so don’t get it twisted—these are dessert, not a side salad. Nobody comes to this site for the vegetables.
If you think you’ve seen these on here before, that’s because you have…or a version of them, anyway. I posted Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies back in the winter of 2016. I stand by that recipe, although my personal cookie tastes have changed since then, as has my general baking philosophy.
…can’t believe I just said I had a “baking philosophy.” Oof, that’s pretentious.
But seriously, in the intervening five years I’ve learned a few things about leaveners and flour and cookies in general, and that knowledge and desire for simpler, better home baking has led to a lot of good things. You know, like four dozen soft & chewy Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The ingredient list for these cookie is similar to the old recipe, but it’s been simplified. There’s less flour, I nixed the cornstarch, shifted the leaveners, and swapped all the white sugar for dark brown.
I’ve also fully eliminated the chill, which I rarely do in cookie recipes. Chilling cookie dough helps to produce thicker, puffier cookies, but these bake up nice and soft without any break in the action. If you want a slightly thicker cookie, or need to take a pause between mixing and baking, feel free to chill the dough for an hour or two before baking them off. For me though, these crisp-edged, soft-centered whole grain cookies are perfect without any lag time.
For those of you wondering if whole wheat flour makes these taste healthy, it’s a resounding “no” because they’re not any less indulgent than the chocolate chip cookies you’ve eaten your whole life. The whole wheat flavor is absolutely there, but so is all that caramelly brown sugar, butter and chocolate. The whole wheat simply adds a subtle toastiness that amplifies the classic flavor we all love.
So, yeah. Health food, these are not. But delicious? You bet.
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 4 dozen cookies
2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoons Kosher or sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy. Beat in dark brown sugar, followed by eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients in two installments, beating until completely combined. Mix in chocolate chips.
Scoop dough in 1 1/2 tablespoon increments (I used a medium cookie scoop) and roll into balls, setting them two inches apart on the prepared pans. Bake 10-11 minutes until they look just slightly underdone. Let cool on the sheet pans for five minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Cookies will keep covered at room temperature for up to a week.
In five years, I’ve deleted exactly three recipes from this blog. I’ve kept terrible photos, absurdly lengthy writing and even some personal stuff on here, so you may be wondering why I’d remove whole recipes. The answer is simple: because they were bad. Not “not perfect,” not “unoriginal.” Just bad. They didn’t taste good and/or work properly, and those are basically the only two requirements for me to put a recipe on here, so I deleted them. Among the group were a batch of Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins that were truly atrocious, and which I have finally found the time to rework into something delicious.
Now, I didn’t intentionally write a terrible muffin recipe. There were circumstances. I wrote the old recipe for Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins when I was five days off the break-up a four year relationship. That was my first mistake—don’t try to do good work when you’re heartbroken.
Two weeks ago, I found myself five years more experienced, very over that boyfriend, and with a large bag of mostly-unallocated whole wheat flour. Armed with that and a newfound 
These Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins are soft and just sweet enough, with plenty of chocolate chips and whole grain flavor. Butter, sour cream and eggs keep them moist and balance the potential for heaviness that comes with using all whole wheat flour. They also get a little lift from starting in a 400F, then continuing at 350F until they’re fluffy, puffy and perfect.
Did you know you can make a 
Well, I didn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to me until I made 
Not only is this oven pancake completely whole grain, it’s also naturally gluten-free! If you or a fellow breakfast guest needs to be gluten-free, make sure your oats are certified gluten-free.
If you’re wondering if this Oatmeal Puff Pancake is more work than the traditional version, the answer is “no.” Just like its gluten-full counterpart, the batter comes together in under 90 seconds in a blender, then goes directly into a super hot, buttery pan, then into the oven for 18 minutes.
The pancake is ready when the edges are golden brown and the center is beginning to take on color. It will also likely (but not always) have a few large bubbles, which will quickly disappear as the puff relaxes into a smoother bowl shape at room temperature.
Once it’s deflated, fill your Oatmeal Puff Pancake with your favorite seasonal fruit (I went with the last of the plums and blackberries) and drizzle with maple syrup, or go more traditional with lemon and confectioner’s sugar. Then slice into this custard-centered beauty and behold its crisp-chewy edges.
Like other Dutch Baby recipes, this Oatmeal Puff Pancake can be scaled up or down depending on the size of your pan and how many servings you need. I’ve included times and proportions for four different yields in the recipe notes to make sure that there’s plenty to go around.
I can hardly believe that Christmas is one week away. Thanksgiving was so late this year that I don’t feel like I’ve stopped to bask in the glow of Christmas lights at all, and I won’t have time to until I’m in Texas.
Don’t get me wrong, my apartment is decorated within an inch of fire code and I’ve been to see all the festive things. I’m just not quite in the spirit yet…except when I’m making cookies. Or showing up to places with cookies. Luckily for me, I do a lot of both of those things. Ain’t life grand?
Today’s cookies, these Oat-Pecan Linzer beauts, are a crisp, nutty, whole grain take on a classic. They’re as delicious as they are visually stunning, and they have the added benefits of being both gluten-free and vegan, so you know the batch will disappear in no time.
The Oat-Pecan Linzer Cookie dough is a variation on the 
The cut-out cookies are set over a rack and dusted with confectioner’s sugar, while the whole ones are spread with jam. You can glue your linzers together with any jam or spread you like. I used raspberry jam in the cookies with the tree cut-outs and apricot for the stars. Feel free to get creative with 
These linzers are everything I love in a holiday cookie: sweet, spiced, stunning and shareable. You *know* how much I love a 
e2 bakes brooklyn 