GF: Buckwheat Double Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Cocoa Nibs and Fleur de Sel
Every Thursday I spend my immensely lavish 23 minute lunch period in a meeting. It’s not as if our teaching days are scheduled with millions of opportunities to return phone calls, actually go to the bathroom, etc so those 23 minutes are a precious commodity. To have it become a “working lunch” is well, a little difficult. However, it is the only time of the day when most of the ladies in my department have the same scheduled break. (Everyone but me, so I just flip things around on Thursdays.)
In the last couple years, these lunch meetings have been everything from serious discussions to birthday celebrations. Lately, my colleagues have really been understanding that I can/cannot eat certain things and have brought treats to share on our celebratory days that i can eat too. It feels great to be included with the food too.
Today’s topic is serious. And people may be stressed. So I made chocolate cookies to share with my serious chocoholic colleagues. These ladies eat more chocolate than I have ever seen consumed. Seriously. So I made a chocolate cookie that will satisfy their cravings for a crunchy, chocolaty cookie. (If you want a softer cookie, just add an egg to the mix.)
The best part? It’s gluten free.
Even better? it uses healthier grains too.
So how does a Buckwheat-Sorghum Double Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookie with Cocoa Nibs and Sea Salt sound to you? Sounds tasty, but the name is to long. Sadly, the name idea is beyond me. I’d name them after my favorite jazz singer or something else to evoke the idea of night and a good cup of coffee. But really, these are just the best stinkin’ chocolate crunchy cookie. And I didn’t want to name them that either. If you can think of a name for these, let me know. I’m just content to eat them. 🙂
Here’s hoping the rest make it to lunch with the ladies today….
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GF: Buckwheat Double Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Cocoa Nibs and Sea Salt
Recipe makes 15 3″ cookies.
Ingredients:
11 T. butter (1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coffee extract
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup dark chocolate, unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon Fleur De Sel + additional for sprinkling on top of the finished cookie.
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa nibs
1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks/pieces
Directions:
- Cream butter until light and creamy, about 3-4 minutes.
- Add extracts and sugars. Beat together for an additional 3-4 minutes. Be sure to scrap down the sides of the bowl to mix all ingredients together well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flours (buckwheat, sorghum, tapioca), cocoa powder, xanthan gum, salt, and baking powder.
- Add dry ingredients to creamed butter/sugar mixture and mix until just blended. Do not overwork the dough, just mix until blended.
- Add cocoa nibs and chocolate chunks and mix to evenly distribute.
- At this point the mixture will not be sticking together like traditional cookie dough, however, you should be able to pinch chucks together as it is still moist enough to form small balls. Scrap the dough into a large Ziploc bag. Squish the dough into a long long. (I use the gallon size bags and make a log as long as the bag – about 11″ long (? – sorry, I don’t have one near me for reference at the moment). The log should be about 3 inches wide by 2 inches. I made my log into a rectangle, not round. Refrigerate the log for at least one hour but it made be refrigerated overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 325F.
- Prepare two cookie sheets with silpat or parchment paper linings.
- Cut the log into cookies, about 1/2″ thick. (You will be able to make about 14-15 cookies of this size from your log). Cutting the log can be a bit difficult as the cocoa nibs are hard. Try to keep the cookies into one slab cut, but don’t worry too much if pieces crumble. You can use these crumbles on top of the cookie slabs without any problems.
- Lay the cookies at least 1″ apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake for 14-15 minutes.
- As soon as the cookies have been removed from the oven, crush some finishing salt in your hand and sprinkle it over the top gingerly and lightly of each cookie. (The salt adds a great flavor and enhances the chocolate taste.)
- Cool for 5 minutes before moving to a cooking rack. (I just slide the whole parchment paper onto the cooling racks to avoid breaking the cookies.)
- Allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
The cookies are chewy when warm (and definitely need some milk served along aside if these are your baking treat) and crunchy when cool. If you would like a chewier texture when cool, you can add one egg to the mix when you all the sugars and extracts.
Happy Cookie Baking!
-Kate