By Elaine Magee
Q. I am looking for a fantastic-tasting whole-wheat cookie to try out on my family. Do they exist?
A. When baking, I've been a lot braver with the whole-wheat flour lately. I've even created some 100 percent whole-wheat cookies! I thought I would share one of my favorites with you — chocolate espresso cookies.
I not only switched to whole-wheat flour when making these cookies, I also used a less-fat margarine (with low saturated fat and no trans fat) instead of butter and decreased the brown sugar by 25 percent.
The result surprised even me. These cookies are so moist and full of flavor. You can't eat just one, so I guess it's good that we reduced the calories by 13 percent, grams of fat by 33 percent, saturated fat by 50 percent, and doubled the fiber.
If you want to skip the freezer step (putting the dough in the freezer to stiffen) you can continue on with the recipe — the dough will just be a lot softer and stickier to work with, but it will still work out well.
Original recipe contains 165 calories, 7.5 grams fat, 4.3 grams saturated fat and only 1 gram of fiber per 2-cookie serving.
WHOLE WHEAT CHOCOLATE-ESPRESSO COOKIES
In a glass bowl or microwave-safe container, melt chocolate in microwave on 50 percent power, stirring after the first minute and every 30 seconds thereafter until chocolate is liquid. Set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, in medium bowl, combine whole wheat flour, cocoa, instant espresso, baking powder and salt with whisk or fork and set aside.
In large mixing bowl, cream margarine and brown sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the egg or egg substitute until combined, scraping the sides of bowl midway to incorporate all of the dough. On low speed, pour in the cooled chocolate and beat until blended. Still on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until combined (do not overmix).
Wrap dough in plastic and flatten dough into a disk (so it cools faster) and set in freezer for about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Shape dough into 1-inch balls then roll balls in the sugar two times and place on prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake about 12 minutes; cookies will still be soft but will have spread and the powdered coating cracked. Cool cookies on wire rack.
Makes about 24 cookies.
