Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Whole Wheat S'more Cookies

Posted by Lucy Baker, January 21, 2008 at 2:00 PM

For this week's installment of my Recipe Resolution I decided to tackle February's Bon Appetit, which is chock full of incredible sounding recipes including one by Bruce Aidells for Middle Eastern Bison Meatballs with Cilantro Yogurt Sauce that I swear I'm going to make just as soon as I splurge on an automatic spice grinder. (It's on my kitchen wish list, along with a super deluxe free-standing mixer, a crepe pan, and an immersion blender...)

Since the bison is going to have to wait until at least after my birthday (hint, hint) I decided to make the Whole Wheat S'more Cookies, primarily because I feel the same way about s'mores as I do about ice cream. That is, they shouldn’t be restricted to the summer months. Sure, they taste best when roasted over a campfire—maybe with a stray pine needle or two embedded in the marshmallow—but indoor s'mores on a cold winter’s night are nothing to sniff at. Besides, whole wheat means they're healthy, right? Right?

It was a pretty straightforward drop cookie recipe with basic ingredients, most of which I had on hand. But while I followed the instructions exactly, my dough turned out to be exceptionally stiff. Even after whisking the buttermilk, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla into my dry ingredients I still had to use major elbow grease just to moisten all the flour. Working in the chocolate chips, walnuts, and marshmallows was equally tough. Ultimately, I ended up kind of pressing them into each cookie once I had spooned the dough out onto the sheets.

The results were a mixed bag. My marshmallows, even though stale as the recipe suggested, couldn't take the heat and melted into a sugary drizzle that oozed out of each cookie. The cookies themselves were very dense and a bit too toothy for my taste—they sort of reminded me of little bran muffins. That said, the nutty taste of the whole wheat flour paired nicely with the walnuts, and did impart a subtle graham cracker taste. And I liked the milk chocolate as opposed to the more traditional semi-sweet; it lent the cookies a certain comfort-food-of-my-childhood nostalgia.

While I doubt that I'll make this particular recipe again, I'm not giving up on the notion of a s'mores cookie. Next time, I think I’ll bake a batch of regular chocolate chip cookies, substitute in 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour, and then sandwich two with a dollop of Fluff. How bad could that be?

About the author: Lucy Baker is a graduate student in the writing program at Sarah Lawrence College. Before returning to school to pursue an MFA, she was an assistant cookbook editor at HarperCollins. She lives in Brooklyn and is currently obsessed with all things fennel.

Whole Wheat S'more Cookies

- makes 36 cookies -

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon dark molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup mini marshmallows (preferably a bit stale)
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Line a few baking sheets with parchment. Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, molasses, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Stir in butter. Add wet ingredients to dry, stirring until combined. Work in chocolate chips, marshmallows, and walnuts.

3. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto sheets, spacing cookies 2 or 3 inches apart. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, until lightly browned and dry to touch but still soft, about 15 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

3 Comments | Tags: baking, cookies, Healthy and Delicious, marshmallows