After gathering up a dozen or so interesting dessert recipes, I decided all I really wanted this morning was a batch of Whole Wheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies. This is the recipe I used. Thanks to the oil, these are slightly lower in saturated fat than regular chocolate chip cookies and they have a bit of whole grain from the whole wheat pastry flour. Nuts are always welcome in our family, but you can leave them out if you want. If you follow this recipe without making changes, you should get fairly thick cookies with crunchy edges.
Walnut Oil Variation
This is one of my older recipes (if you can't tell by the fact it hasn't been formatted), but it has a lot of potential for improvement. The cookies are good the way they are, but you can alter the recipe in so many ways by changing flavors of oil (for instance, walnut oil in place of a tablespoon of vegetable) and use small amounts of honey or maple syrup in place of some of the sugar. It really depends on your mood, but this is a fun one to play with. I'll update with some new photos.
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1 cup sifted whole wheat pastry flour (126 grams) (sift and then measure)
Scant ½ cup all-purpose flour (63 grams)
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut up (58 grams)
¼ cup vegetable oil (56 grams)
½ cup granulated sugar (98 grams)
¼ cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed (50 grams)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup chopped semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate
½ cup toasted chopped pecans or walnuts
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Stir together the sifted whole wheat pastry flour, all purpose flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
Beat the cold butter with an electric mixer until it is creamy. Add the oil and both sugars and continue to beat until sugar is creamed (about a minute). Add the vanilla and egg and beat just until egg is mixed in, scraping sides of bowl once or twice. Stir in the flour in two parts either by hand or using the lowest speed of stand mixer. When flour is mixed in, stir in the chocolate and toasted nuts. Batter should be thick and cold, but not dry. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 3-5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
About 16 to 18 Cookies – This is just an estimate since I haven’t baked all the dough.
Recipe
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup sifted whole wheat pastry flour 126 grams (sift and then measure)
- ½ cup all-purpose flour 63 grams
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks (58 grams)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- ¼ cup dark or light brown sugar lightly packed (50 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup chopped semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate
- ½ cup toasted chopped pecans or walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Stir together the sifted whole wheat pastry flour, all purpose flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
- Using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, beat the cold butter until it is creamy. Add the oil and both sugars and continue to beat until sugar is creamed (about a minute). Add the vanilla and egg and beat just until egg is mixed in, scraping sides of bowl once or twice. Add the flour in two parts either by hand or using the lowest speed of stand mixer. When flour is mixed in, stir in the chocolate and toasted nuts. Batter should be thick and cold, but not dry.
- Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 3-5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cathy says
Thanks, I will try again and weigh the flour next time.
Anna says
Well, I just didn't another test batch and they turned out well -- medium thick with crispy edges and tender middles. So Cathy, if you try the recipe again use a little more flour. I used the scale and measured by volume. The dough shouldn't be too sticky. It's a little more dry than Toll House dough.
Lisa says
I will try this recipe, it looks yummy. You can never go wrong with chocolate chip cookies.
Anna says
Well, I am making another quick test batch right now just to double-check :). Luckily, chocolate chip is my favorite type of cookie.
Cathy says
Actually, that (too little flour) was my other theory. I was being very cautious not to use too much, perhaps I ended up with too little! And I don't remember where I heard that about flat cookies could be caused by overmixing cookie dough, I just remember hearing it years ago. Maybe it was malarky!
Anna says
Hi Cathy,
I really don't think you overbeat the butter mixture. Do you think you could have used too light a hand with the flour? My cookies spread when I don't use enough flour.
Cathy says
I made these but mine spread out quite a bit and were pretty crisp as soon as they cooled. Think I overbeat the butter or butter/oil/sugar? I started w/ very cold butter. After I had already mixed up the dough I got to thinking I wonder what they'd be like with unsweetended applesauce in place of the oil... Applesauce makes cookies really soft and cakey... I assume these wouldn't have crisped up on me with applesauce in the mix. Will try again!
shar says
hey Anna, I saw natural Jif on sale at Target in our weekly ad today for $2.00.
deeba says
That's a nice, healthy & well balanced cookie...yum! Yes, I would love to add walnuts. I like it that the butter is just 4 tbsps & there is oil to balance the batter. Interesting indeed!
Anna says
Trish, my idea of eating healthful is a well-rounded calorie appropriate diet with lots of fruit, vegetables, lean protein and a cookie or two. When I stick to that, things are fine. It's days when I keep going back and trimming off edges of cookies or "rescuing" the broken ones that are bad ;).
Pearl, these started out sort of chewy in the middle, but a few hours later they hardened up. If you like chewy, you could try this recipe with ALL butter (total 4 oz) and elimate the oil.
Hendria, thanks! You're sweet.
Hendria says
I have nominated your blog for the love blog award.
Pearl says
mmm are these cookies soft & chewy in the middle?
Trish says
Ah.....thank goodness you have a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie! Grin...I love your site....and have been a contributor regularly on another cooking blog but have gone back to my own....trying to cook in general more healthy...ha! But...truly, anytime one can throw some flax seed, wheat germ etc.....into the baking one should. I make at least one chocolate chip cookie recipe a weekend for the teenager...in his final year of studies at home I think he deserves to pick his lunch items, n'est pa? Thanks....and hope you don't mind but put you on my bloglist.....love your recipes!
bakingblonde says
Thanks Anna!
Anna says
BB, you mean kept 1/2 cup of AP flour in the recipe, right? Because it's 1 cup sifted whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup all purpose.
But good question. Sifted flour weighs less than unsifted flour and my sifted cup of whole wheat pastry flour weighed in at 4.5 oz. But usually, whole wheat flour weighs a little more than all purpose and you wouldn't use the same amount volume for volume. You'd use the same weights.
In this case, the *sifted* whole wheat flour weighs the same as the unsifted all purpose flour so you could go ahead and just use 1 1/2 cups sifted whole wheat pastry flour and probably get the same results. BUT the cookies would taste wheatier. That is probably not a bad thing if you like the wheaty flavor.
Anna says
Jessica, your recipe sounds great! In fact, the proportions of ingredients are **very** similar to one of my old favorites from Cuisine at Home. So I know yours are excellent and will have to try them. The recipe I just posted today has a slightly harder, crispier texture around the edges. But if your cookies are like a wheat version of the Cuisine Cookies, then they must be fabulous.
Here's a link to the Cuisine at Home cookies which are similar to Jessica's but are not whole wheat. It calls for a few extra tablespoons of flour, but keep in mind white flour weighs less than whole wheat so ounce for ounce, the flour amounts are probably the same too.
Based on the texture of the Cuisine cookies, I'd say today's are harder and slightly crispier.
https://www.cookiemadness.net/?p=942
Rina, as I understand it, when you start with cold butter and beat it, the friction from the beating process brings the butter down to a good temperature for creaming which according to S. Corriher is about 65 degrees F.She says that properly creamed cold butter holds more air and makes for a cookie with a sturdier structure. Granted, I've made a lot of great cookies with too-soft butter and don't think it's worth getting hung up over, but I do tend to get better cookies when I beat cold butter until creamy...and these did have very nicely rounded edges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/dining/17bake.html?em
The whole wheat flavor was great. The bit of all-purpose flour was just enough to lesson it so the cookies don't taste too health foodish.
bakingblonde says
I have never used whole wheat flour in baking but really want to. Can you sub all of the AP flour for Whole Wheat Flour? I am wondering why you kept 1/4 cup AP flour in this recipe.
I love the look of these!
Cakespy says
I love whole wheat flour in cookies, they just seem to give the flavor a certain...je ne sais quoi. Nuttiness perhaps? Any way you cut it, yum!
dawn says
Did they taste good with the whole wheat flour in there? They look good, so I imagine so.
snooky doodle says
these look really good. they don t look like they re wholewheat and i like the fact they use oil. have to try these 🙂
Rina says
Out of curiousity, why cold butter and not room temp if it needs to be creamed anyway? Is it so that the cookies don't spread as much while baking? Thanks Anna.
Olivia says
mhhmmm, I love whole wheat cookies too!
Dani says
a nice new spin on an old favourite 🙂
Jessica "Su Good Sweets" says
Oops, the link didn't go through. It's here: http://www.sugoodsweets.com/blog/2005/11/imbb-21-cookies/#cc-cookies
Jessica "Su Good Sweets" says
I grew up making WW CC cookies...they taste nutty and hearty, and I like them for what they are. I also made them with 1/2 canola oil, because the original recipe called for shortening and I didn't know what that was when I was little. The recipe's here , and it's very similar to yours.
Anna says
These weren't cakey, but they weren't chewy either.....kind of a combo. The oil makes a big difference in the overall texture and the butter adds a little butter flavor.
Katrina says
Those look GREAT! I made a ccc the other day with 100% whole wheat flour and subbing ALL the butter for white bean puree. An interesting cookie, not bad enough to throw out, but very dense and sort of cakey. THESE sound great! You know I'll have to try them. 😉
VeggieGirl says
Mmm, love thick cookies - more to savor!! 🙂