Hush Little Baker

Ellie will be four weeks old on Saturday. It’s amazing how time flies when you’re up every night for 5am feedings. As I sat there in the dark this morning, staring into my daughter’s not-quite-blue-but-not-quite-brown eyes, I thought about the last time I had baked. Turns out it was exactly four weeks ago today—the day I went into labor. I made a huge batch of brownies that morning, just in case I needed some snacks for the inevitable onslaught of guests that would soon be arriving.



So a little while ago, as Ellie napped with her dad, I decided to tackle my first HLB (Hush Little Baker) project: Quick Chocolate Chippers.

My inspiration for this cookie comes from one of my favorite gluten-free recipes from Elana’s Pantry. It’s fast, low-fuss, and can be made in two bowls with one spoon or spatula—easy peasy. But, as I’ve been on a serious carb-binge while breastfeeding, I decided to bulk up the ingredients and add a few twists. Instead of gluten-free-friendly almond flour (which, incidentally, I am almost out of), I used a mix of whole wheat and oat flours. I subbed butter for some of the grapeseed oil, honey for some of the lower-glycemic agave nectar (I think I was a bee in a former life), and a little bit of cinnamon for good measure.

The result? A pretty decent cookie that has some healthy benefits, isn’t overly sweet, holds up well in the freezer, and won’t induce fits of cookie-eating guilt. The real success, though, is that it’s completely doable from start to finish, including cleanup and cooling time, in under an hour—regardless of what swaps or substitutions you decide to make.

PS: Please excuse any funky formatting in this post. I’m typing with one hand while Ellie sits in the other, with not much time to tinker with the HTML!

QUICK CHOCOLATE CHIPPERS - Total time: 53 minutes
Makes 28-30

00:04- Ingredients on the counter

00:11- Wet and dry ingredients prepped

00:23- Wet and dry mixed, chocolate chips added to the dough

00:29- Dough scooped onto parchment lined baking sheet

00:53- Baked, cooled and ready to eat!

INGREDIENTS

-1.5 C whole wheat flour

-1 C oat flour (I use a Magic Bullet to pulverize whole oats)

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/2 tsp baking soda

-1/2 tsp cinnamon

-1/4 C melted butter (equal to 1/2 a stick)

-1/2 C grapeseed oil (plus or minus a little, based on the dough’s wetness)

-1 TBSP vanilla extract

-1/4 C agave nectar

-1/4 C honey

-3/4 to 1 C semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix dry ingredients in one large bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Add wet into dry. Mixture should be a little tight, but not crumbly. Add more grapeseed oil if needed to get to the right dough consistency.

Mix in chocolate chips.

Form cookies using a one inch scoop and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 6 minutes. Throw dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

Flatten cookies with the back of a spatula and rotate the baking sheet. Bake for another 6-8 minutes.

Cool and enjoy!

My due date is tomorrow, and something tells me it will come and go without incident. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands for the past few days, working from home while waiting for Baby Small to make her appearance. So this weekend I decided to take a test run at the premise of this blog: hands-on baking in under an hour. The project: Coconut Dark Chocolate Scones. 

As owner & baker of Scratch, a small Atlanta & web-based bakery, I’ve got my scone process down to a pretty tight science. But I’ve never quite timed it before. Turns out that I can go from “blank slate” to “hands-in-dough” to “dishwasher filled” in under an hour. But the 16-18 minute baking time? That’s what put it over the edge.

                   

So a new idea was born (hopefully my daughter will quickly follow). As I figure out how to make my favorite baked goods while the little one sleeps, my recipes will ultimately fall into one of three “under an hour” categories:

- Start to Finish, which will include ingredient setup, prep, cleanup and baking time
- Start to Pan, which will include everything except baking time
- Start to Freezer, which will cover all of the goodies you can make in advance to have on hand for surprise in-law visits

Since I’ll be starting this blog—and the new mommy adventures—all at once, please bear with me if my on-the-fly photos are less than award-worthy. If you hang in there, I’m confident that the pictures, and the posts, will get better over time. And you’ll be rewarded with some pretty fast, pretty awesome sweets.

-Amy