Whole Grain Snicker Doodles

Whole Grain Snicker Doodles

      I don't understand why people are afraid of using whole grains for baking. Ok, Yes I do.  I think it has to do with wheat. For years that is what we had, and we tried doing every thing with wheat, and to be perfectly honest, whole wheat cookies are horrible. I personally don't enjoy much that is made with whole wheat, except bread. I love using wheat with bread, but everything else I never use the stuff,  and have had great success.

     What I don't understand is the love affair with white flour. It's horrible, tasteless garbage for the most part. There are some uses for white flour, but mostly it is for yeasted breads. Outside of that, I have no use for white flour, and I only use bromaine free white flours, like Wheat Montana's Natural White, when baking yeasted products.

     We live in a great time for health and nutrition and let me tell you that healthy can taste great ,and if you do it right you don't have to sacrifice texture and flavor in making wonderful whole grain cookies.  I love good cookies, and I am known for my cookies. When I changed from white flour to whole grain, not wheat, they even got better. And I have to tell you I am a cookie snob. I love my cookies, and they have to be good. I tried to make them with whole wheat flour and I quit. I decided that it was to important to have a good cookie. The change came when I was told I could no longer eat wheat. At first I was devastated, until I started messing around with different flours for baking. To my pleasant surprise, I discovered that I love whole grain cookies as long as it is not whole wheat. The best grain I discovered, that worked great for cookies, was spelt.

        Spelt is an ancient grain that has been grown for thousands of years. It is pure and hard. Hard is great because when you grind it up it is amazingly light and fluffy. I love spelt. It is great for baking and what I love about using whole grains is the flavor that comes out when you bake it. Nutty and wonderful. And on top of that you are adding nutrition to the cookies, and much needed fiber. Ok  there is still butter and sugar, but at least with the whole grain you feel better after eating them, and you get some nutrition from the cookie.

     Snicker Doodles never tasted better. I think you will never make a white flour one again.

Nothing like organic fresh eggs in whole grain cookies

Snicker Doodles

1 cup Butter

2 eggs

3 cups Fresh ground spelt flour or Wheat Montana's Spelt Flour

1 teaspoon soda

1 ½ cup sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoon cream of tarter

Cream butter and eggs together, mix all dry ingredients together and add to creamed shortening and egg mixture.  Scoop, roll in sugar and cinnamon and place on parchment paper and bake in a 400 degree oven 8 to 10 minutes.  

Cinnamon sugar mixture

1 cup sugar, I like the organic sugar or raw sugar works well.

2 teaspoon nutmeg

3 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix well.  Store in airtight container .

 




   Parchment paper is so great for baking cookies. I love how clean it keeps the pans and consider this, the longer the cookies stay on the pan the more they cook. With parchment paper you can slide the entire tray of cookies on a rack or counter at the same time and they cool faster and it frees up your cookies pan for more baking.

 



      You can see the whole grain goodness in these cookies.   After eating whole grain cookies, white flour taste pasty and flavorless. I love the whole grain nuttiness in a snicker doodle cookie.

     Notice the sparkle of the sugar. I use the organic sugar, it seems to be bigger and is less processed. But lets be real, sugar is sugar and in large amounts it is harmful to the body. I don't use a lot of sugar in my cooking, but sometimes we try to make it to healthy and it ruins the entire process. If you are going to eat a Snicker Doodle, eat it and enjoy it. If you cannot handle the sugar, eat something else.

      Whole Grains are wonderful. I will be adding more and more blogs on using them. Food is a wonderful gift, and from cookies, to Third Sunday Dinners, we can bless the lives of those around us. Remember my favorite Chef Brad Quote "No matter how healthy it is, if our families won't eat it, we have wasted our time". Somethings just are not meant to be totally healthy. But they can be made healthier, with the addition of whole grains.   Enjoy the Day.