Eggless Wholewheat Cookies - Baking for A Sweet Punch

Baking again for A Sweet Punch event. These cookies come from Manjula's Kitchen and is indeed a really easy and relatively healthy option to bake. And no questions about how tasty these turned out and even eating a few is hard. You've got to eat too many!

Let's talk hypothetical here. The best time to bake this will be when you and your friends are sitting around chatting. And you get up to make some tea or coffee because you are all really tired from the non stop banter. But then you look for a snack to serve along with tea and realize that yesterday when you went grocery shopping, you were almost buying some snacks but a really pretty red shoe on the next store window called you and you forgot all about the snack. And then it also happened that they had just one pair of the red shoes and it wasn't your size. Dejected, you just came back home. And now you're stuck with no snack. Light bulb. Eggless wholewheat cookies. Wait, you'll need stuff to make them. Checking on the recipe. Whole wheat, check. Sugar, check. Butter, always check. Almonds, thank God check. Cardamom, yes! check. Salt and milk, of course check. And it takes just the amount of time you spend to make a few cups of tea. Really. And at the end of it, you and your friends have a plate full of delicious cookies to snack on with tea. And you can follow that with the story of the red shoe and your dejection. That's totally up to you. 

And all of that was hypothetical. I made these after dinner at home just for us. And it was a perfect little dessert. 

The link above has the detailed recipe. You can mix up the almonds in here with other nuts or even add some dried fruits like apricots or raisins to the batter.

Start with 1 cup of whole wheat flour. 

Add 1/2 cup of granulated white sugar to the flour.

Throw in 1/4 tsp of salt in there.

And then add 1/4 cup of sliced almonds.

And for a tremendous flavor, add 1/2 tsp of fresh cardamom powder. The flavor that this brings is just unbelievable. I recently was also talking to a friend of mine who's American and she was going gaga over how she found Cardamom and loved the smell and flavor of it. I'm sure she would love these cookies!

Add 1/2 cup - 1 stick of unsalted butter. But this butter needs to be softened. The best way to do it is just keep the butter out a few hours before you start baking.

Using fingertips, just blend the butter and the flour mix till you start getting a crumbly texture.

Once all the flour and butter are mixed together well, start kneading a little bit until the dough start forming a ball.

Like this.

Take small portions, make small balls and flatten them and arrange on a baking tray. And yes, please pre heat that oven to 360F

Top the little dough balls with some sliced almonds if you'd prefer.

Bake in the pre heated oven for about 15-18 mins. I took out the tray at about 15 mins when they seemed done.

Lookin good. Can't wait to eat yet. I actually expected them to flatten out a little bit - but they just held on to the shape. I'm not complaining though. Once you take a bite, how does shape matter!

And yes, by the time I came to this picture - I've already eaten a couple! And they taste great!

Serve em up warm or store to eat later. Either way, they won't last long - they'll all be eaten before you know it.

I can't stop taking pictures. 

This one is for the sweet punch team! Thanks gals for a nice recipe!

This one is for all you girl pals out there. Grab some please. 

And now about those red shoes..

Enjoy. Peace out!

Persimmon Spice Cookies

Persimmons are a very Asian fruit. So proudly Japan and China Asian that they forgot to tell even their own South Asians Indians about them. I had not heard about this fruit until a couple of years ago when we moved into our house. The previous owners had planted the Persimmon and Guava trees and these are pretty solid fully grown trees now with a lot of fruit. 

These Persimmons in my back yard are the 'Fuyu' or the non-astringent variety. These don't have to be really ripe and can be eaten when they are orange and a little crunchy too. They kind of taste like apples but with a little tartness to it. 

This post has been lying in my drafts for a loooong time now. Actually as I write this today, my tree in the back yard is almost bare with all the leaves falling. And so I promised my tree that I will publish the tasty persimmon cookies post before the last leaf falls from the tree. A little tribute to thank my tree for an awesome season this year! Thank you Persi baby! Meet you again next year. I'll have cookies for you and then maybe cookies with you. (And I don't mean you and me sharing cookies)

Here's my all green tree - this was actually a couple of months ago. You can't really see all the fruits here - they kind of form in big bunches and hide well behind the leaves. It was very interesting to see that. When you walk up to and look into the tree, you can see big bunches of fruit all in a little cluster.  Peekaboo.

I see you.

Here's a little sample of what I found hidden.

I love the color of these babies.

This one was really orange and ripe.

I've always wanted to make something with this fruit. I came across this site with a few good persimmon recipes and instantly decided to give the Persimmon Cookies II a try. The recipe was simple enough and I had almost all the ingredients with me. But I modified some of the ingredients to customize a little bit.

So, getting on with the ingredient list here -

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Persimmon Pulp - 1 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar - 1 cup
Butter - 1 cup
Egg - 1
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Spice Mix - 1/2 tsp. This is a dry powder of cinnamom, cloves and cardamom.
Apricots, Almonds, Chocolate Chips and Raisins - about 1/4 cup each.
Finely chopped ginger - 1 tbsp


Chop up the persimmon and throw away the core..just like apples. Look at these lines in the middle here.

And then further chop into small pieces.

And then using a blender, puree and make persimmon pulp. I used about 3 persimmons for this much pulp. Add a few drops of water - just so your blender will get going. Not too much water.

So, that's about 1 3/4 cup. I actually used only 1 1/2 cup for the cookies.

When my parents were visiting, they got me this absolutely heavenly smelling small gift box of spices. These were fresh spices from Kerala and it was like I was surrounded by a whole spice forest. Oh, the smell when you just open the box. It is so stress reliving. People should just keep a box of this in their work cubicles and for 3 mins a day - they should just open this and smell. No more stress.

I love the flat cinnamon in the box. Just make a dry mix of some cinnamon, a few cloves and a few elaichi pods (cardamom).

These will all be additions to the persimmon batter. Again, you don't have to have these things - improvise with what you have or add stuff that you want to taste in your cookie.

And the fresh chopped ginger - also brings the whole earthiness to the cookie.You've got to eat it to believe it!

Add the butter and brown sugar to a mixing bowl and beat on low speed until all the butter is incorporated well with the sugar. Make sure the butter is in room temperature and soft or even a little melted before mixing.

Add 1 egg and beat well until combined. If you are a no-egg person, skip it and add maybe a little baking powder along with the soda.

Now, pour the persimmon pulp to the butter mix.
Beat on medium speed until well combined.

For the dry mix, take about 2 cups of all purpose flour and add 1 tsp of baking soda to it.

Then, add the wonderful, flavorful spice mix - about 1/2 tsp. Don't add a lot - you don't want the spice to overpower the persimmon flavor. This 1/2 tsp just enhances the flavor and adds the needed oomph to the cookies.

Mix the dry flour mix with the persimmon/butter mix.

And there's the batter.

Now, throw in the extras...the apricots, chocolate chips, almonds and raisins.

Batter is so ready now for the final show.

Take little spoonfuls and spoon on to a baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 350F for about 10 mins or until you see them turn golden and they look done. Go ahead..enjoy with your little toothpick poke too.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw how pretty these looked and how great they smelled.

Is that a good texture or what? And with little biteable pieces of good stuff inside. Perfect.

Cool them on a rack. Eat them warm. And share them with your neighbors. I did and they loved it too.

I have to mention though - this cookie tastes great when its warm. When its cooled down, the spices take over.. which some might like. But when warm, the spices take the back seat and let the persimmon rule up front. And that was a really good thing. Just like cinnamon rolls, some things are meant to be eaten warm. And this is the big daddy of that family.

From here 

To here

Oh what joy!

Enjoy! Peace out!