Cardamom Cookies

These are quiet, well behaved cookies, especially nice with a cup of tea on a cold and cloudy afternoon, when you can’t bear too much excitement, or guilt.  Whole wheat, ground oats, raw sugar, they really aren’t that bad for you.  Comforting cookies, they are.

This recipe makes about two and a half dozen cookies, and take less than an hour from start to nibbling, unless you need to chill the dough if your kitchen is too warm.  (Mine wasn’t.) Set your oven to 350 F.

I used raw honey and raw organic sugar.

½ cup (rounded) raw natural oats

6 green cardamom pods, husks removed

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour

½ teaspoon Kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

10 grates fresh black pepper corns

1 cup soft butter

¾ cup raw sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 tablespoons milk (optional)

Extra flour for rolling  

You want to have a slightly heaping half cup of raw natural oats, the least processed you can get.  Toss the oats and cardamom in the blender and whiz till the oatmeal is like a grainy flour and the cardamom is well combined.  In a medium size bowl, blend oats, cardamom, flour, salt, baking soda, and ground pepper.  Stirring with a fork or spoon will do.  Set aside. 

Stir together dry ingredients.

In an electric mixer bowl, combine butter, raw sugar and honey.  Beat on medium high speed till light and fluffy.  Dial the speed back to low, and slowly begin adding the dry mixture.  Once all the dry mixture is added, pour in the vanilla but keep beating.  My flour may have been overly dry, because I needed to add some milk at this point.  If your dough is crumbly, and not something you could press with a rolling pin, add a tablespoon of milk.  Continue to beat.  If you need the next bit of milk, use it.  Once the dough gathers itself onto the beater, it’s ready. Divide the dough into two balls.  If your kitchen is quite warm, and you fear the dough is too soft, wrap it and refrigerate for about twenty minutes.

Bake till bottoms are a golden brown.

Sprinkle flour on a rolling surface, and onto a rolling pin.   Roll out one ball at a time into a large oval, about an eighth of an inch thick.  You could use the rim of a glass to cut out the dough, but I used a fancy cookie cutter. 

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, about a half inch apart.  Poke with a fork three or four times. Bake for four minutes, turn sheet 90 degrees, then bake another four minutes, till bottoms are golden.  Let sit a couple of minutes, then lift with a spatula onto a rack till cool enough to eat. 

I prefer these as quiet little cookies, but if you need more excitement, or can bear the guilt, go ahead and double them up with a nice filling.  For company I used Nutella in some, and Speculoos Cookie Butter in others.  They’d be awfully nice packed with ice-cream in the middle too.  No?  How about a bit of honey, then?

Well behaved and modest, or outrageously calorie packed, it's up to you.