I know, I know, 100% whole wheat cookies? How good could they be? Well believe it or not, these are really tasty. In fact, the cookies were so good that my husband and I finished all 3 dozen cookies in one week. Please don’t judge us… But they were so delicious, we couldn’t stop!

Anyway, so I am kind of on a health kick. Ok.. Not really, just trying to swap out everything for wheat. That’s about as close as I can get to a “health kick.”

I figured what could I make with wheat flour aside from bread? And the first recipe that popped into my mind was COOKIES!

After I figured out a recipe for whole wheat cookies, I realized that wheat flour is a lot more dense, nuttier and sour than regular flour.

Sour? Yes, it’s a small hint and the not the obvious acid flavor, but rather an interesting nutty flavor with a bitter after taste.  The flavor becomes prominent when mixed with water or any sort of liquid due to a small reaction occurring, which causes that strange sour flavor. So, in order to compliment that “sour” taste, you just add sweet components to the recipes to balance out the flavors. Examples include: honey, stevia or just good ol fashion sugar. Honey works best when making breads. In this specific cookie recipe, I added butterscotch chips to balance out the bitter flavor and milk chocolate chips to balance out the nutty flavor of the wheat. I also added walnuts, because… Well… I like walnuts 🙂

It’s also important to know that when baking, heat always forces any flavor to be intensified during the heating process. So, keep in mind that the flavors of what you are testing will always be intensified when heated.

Anyway, enough about the science (it’s the chemist in me, I can’t help it). Let start talking about the cookies!

I didn’t use butter for this recipe instead, I used margarine because wheat flour tends to make the cookies turn into hockey pucks.

If you want to use butter instead, by all means go ahead. I just like how margarine makes the texture of the cookies. Not too crisp or chewy, just right. 🙂

I really enjoyed the butterscotch and milk chocolate chips in this recipe. If I used white flour, I would have had to use semi-sweet chocolate chips because the cookies would actually come out really sweet from the butterscotch chips.

I ended up just using a table spoon to measure the dough in order for the cookies to all be the same size. I know, after all these years I have yet to invest in an ice cream scoop.

What do I use to scoop out the ice cream, you say? A spoon.

Since I used margarine, the baking time was pretty fast. Only 7-8 minutes. If you used butter then you should bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes.

Whenever I would have guests over, I would have them try these cookies and they would never guess that the cookies are 100% whole wheat. The cookies have a delicious and distinct flavor, but no one will associate it with being good ol fashion wheat.

Bon appétit

Recipe

Yields: 34 – 36 cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup walnuts (optional, but highly recommended)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 ºF.

In a large bowl, stir sugars, butter or margarine, vanilla and eggs until well blended. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be stiff. Stir in the chips and walnuts.

On a nonstick cookie sheet, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart.

Bake 7-8 minutes or until light brown. Centers will be soft, but once cooled, will be stiff. Remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.