Gluten Free Whole Grain Holiday Cookies

Pecan, buckwheat and sorghum thumbprint cookies

I read an interesting article about baking holiday cookies with whole grains in the New York Times a couple weeks ago and have been dying to try their thumbprint recipe.  

The author of the article used rye flour and toasted pecans in his recipe.  I decided to use buckwheat but worried that just buckwheat would have unexpected results, so instead of 1 1/2 cups of rye flour, I used 3/4 cup of buckwheat flour and 3/4 cup of sorghum flour and added a half teaspoon of xanthan gum for good measure.  They turned out looking like your typical vegan cookie (they are not!) but they are quite delicious.  Not as sweet as the usual thumbprint but the texture of the cookie is great and the flavor is complex and wonderful.  My only mistake was to be too pressed for time when I made them not to see that they needed to be chilled first before baking.  Mine turned out fine anyway, but next time I will chill them.

Here is what I did:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1  1/2 cups of raw pecans spread on a cookie sheet; bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 cup sorghum flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp sea salt
2/3 cup coconut palm sugar
9 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature and cut into pieces)
2-3 Tablespoons cold water

Combine the pecans, flours, sugar, salt and xanthan gum in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely ground.  Turn mixture into a large bowl and add the butter and combine with a pastry knife (or your hands...or two knives).  My dough was too dry after this step so I added tablespoons of cold water one at a time until the dough held together.

Divide dough into two and mold each half into a log.  Cut each log into 12 pieces.  Take each piece and roll into a ball.  place each ball on a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silpat.  Make a depression in each ball, flattening it out some (see video at NYT site to see how they did it).  Bake in preheated oven 10 minutes or so, until the edges start to brown.  Remove from oven and cool on a rack.  When cool, you can fill the depression in the center with jam and serve immediately, or store unfilled in the freezer until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Karen, herself