(east coast style)
I made these healthy breakfast cookies in BC when we were visiting Mom, and I’ve been wanting to make them again ever since, this time with cinnamon chips. I ended up making one other change by accident, and I think it made them even better.
I was missing a few key ingredients, so Dave graciously and lovingly headed out to the store while I got started. First up, peanut butter.
I love peanut butter.
I put the peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and added butter. The recipe said to use 1/2 cup, but I stuck with what I’d done in BC and used 1/4 cup butter and 1/8 cup vanilla yogurt. I added vanilla and brown sugar and then went to measure out half a cup of honey. Here’s what I ended up with:
I needed a half a cup and I found four different containers of honey and still couldn’t squeeze that last bit out. Dave was already at the store, probably on his way back, AND his cell phone broke last week and isn’t getting replaced for a few more days. I knew I had agave nectar around, but I Googled it and it wasn’t recommended as a straightforward substitute. I took one more look into the cupboard and thought I saw the outline of a transparent bear….yes! Honey! I reached back and grabbed it.
It was honey, but it was CINNAMON honey. I picked it up on our trip to Pennsylvania this summer. I had no idea how this was going to affect the cookies, but I decided it was a better bet than the agave. In it went.
I mixed.
I added two eggs, and one third of a cup of water.
It blended in nicely after a few spins.
And then things got a little bit more fun, as Juliet decided she wanted to help.
She didn’t last long. She poured some of the oats and the first cup of wheat germ, and scurried away to play outside with Nathaniel. (They do have a lot of fun out there.)
Just before she left, I managed to make a mess with the wheat germ. I couldn’t even blame her, it was all me.
Oops.
I cleaned it up, and finally got a mixture together of oats, wheat germ, whole wheat white flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Despite the unusual addition of cinnamon honey AND my future plans for cinnamon chips, I still doubled the cinnamon. Habit.
I whisked it together, then slowly added it to the other bowl, beating on a fairly low speed.
I added the cinnamon chips (roughly 1/3 cup), folded, and called in Juliet, who wanted to be there for the scooping part.
She took it all very seriously.
She did a great job.
While the first batch was in the oven, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to press the cookies flat. Oops again. I did that for the rest of them.
The first batch all ended up just a tiny bit burnt on the bottom, but the rest turned out great, even the next few trays full of double-size ones. This recipe makes a LOT of cookies.
I love these cookies. And surprise! Juliet likes them too. Juliet is much like I was as a kid, she doesn’t like anything. But look!
Juliet’s right; they’re really good! I love the cinnamon chips, the honey tastes great, they’re crunchy and soft at the same time. Great cookies! The kids are excited about having them for breakfast tomorrow.
And I recommend topping your honey off with cinnamon honey, if you can find it. The place where I bought it actually sells it online, and it looks like they also have peach honey and blueberry honey! Fascinating. It adds a nice touch. (If you’re in Lancaster County, PA, you should visit this place, you can walk around the store sampling everything and they have a huge range of wonderful things to eat and buy, from homemade jams and salsas to whoopie pies and three kinds of peanut butter. We go every June.)
And then you can go home and bake healthy breakfast cookies. And eat them.
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