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nibby buckwheat cookies

Friday, January 29, 2010 by alana

I am a sucker for feeding people. I can’t help it.
Sometimes my desire to fill the bellies of friends who come into the house feels a little bit beyond my control. Come by to drop off a book. Leave with granola. I don’t even know how it happened. I just slip you a bag, even as I’m saying to myself, “Control yourself! They don’t need food! This person is not hungry!”
But for the time being, my visitors put up with it, and I am thankful.

Because my compulsion to feed my guests overwhelms the desire to feed them something fabulous, I have been known to provide strange offerings when the pantry is low. Canned olives. Cheese sticks. Carrots. To avoid this predicament, I bake.

Because wouldn’t you rather I offer you a cookie than a cheese stick?

I thought so.

These cookies might be my favorite ones to have around. They get better with age, and they last a month (theoretically, if they didn’t get eaten so fast). But more importantly, they are wonderful, and they seem to please everyone. They are, you might say, a crowd pleaser.

The cookies in question are Alice Medrich’s nibby buckwheat cookies. They have been written about many times, most specifically here and here, because they really are a wonder. They are shortbread-y and complicated but kid friendly and not too sweet and filled with flavors that you can’t quite pin down. They make a good snack with tea, maybe the best I can think of.

These are some good cookies.

The first time I had them was a ways back, a few years ago even. It was winter, and I was visiting my friend Meg. If I remember correctly she was a bit weary and possibly quite pregnant, and she roused herself from her chair to offer me a cookie.

“Cookie?”

It was not a pretty cookie. Brown and square. Funny little nibs scattered throughout. But I’m always up for a cookie, so down it went.

“Oh, my god. What is that?”

She wrote down the recipe then and there.

And now I’m writing it down for you.

Nibby Buckwheat Cookies (or Buckwheat Cocoa Nib Shortbread, if you need a better name for them, which I think that I do)
from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

makes about 45-50 cookies

1 1/4 cups (5.6 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (3 ounces) buckwheat flour
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cacao nibs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk the flours together in a medium bowl and set aside. Beat the butter with the sugar and salt for about 1 minute in an electric mixer until smooth and creamy but not fluffy. Mix in the cocoa nibs and vanilla. Add the flours and mix just until barely incorporated. Knead the dough with your hands a few times, just until the batter is smooth.

Form the dough into a 12 by 2 inch log. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator about two hours before you want to bake it. When it is slightly soft, it is ready to cut. Use a very sharp knife and cut into 1/4 inch slices. Lay them on the cookie sheet, leaving a bit of space for the cookies to spread. You will get about 15 cookies to a sheet, and you may have to bake in more than one batch.

Bake until the cookies are just starting to color at the edges, about 12-15 minutes. Place the pans on racks to cool, or if you need the pans to bake another batch, you can slide the parchment onto the racks. Just be careful with cookies until they are completely cool. If you can, wait at least a day to eat them, as their taste improves greatly with one days age. They will keep in an airtight container for up to 30 days.

Filed Under: Bites, Sweets Tagged With: baking, cookies, gifts

« bread with butter, radishes, and salt
30-minute mozzarella »

Comments

  1. Patricia says

    Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 2:50 pm

    Alana, rifled though your book last week, and now you are one of my new favorite bloggers…love this cookie recipe too…mini choc chips also work well when no nibs around…but then I love buckwheat and the base recipe so am looking forward to trying other mix-ins with it too…I’m on the cape…hope to catch up with you sometime when I’m out your way or you are mine…

Trackbacks

  1. gifting | Eating From the Ground Up says:
    Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    […] my gift guide?  I’ve got my head in cookies, and granola, and creative ways to gift apple mint syrup. But if that’s not the right […]

  2. gifty says:
    Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 11:30 am

    […] Granola, Preserved Lemons, Nibby Buckwheat Cookies, or Maple Popcorn! How about a tea mix you blend yourself? Or a bit of infused […]


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Instagram post 2337331591407595410_13442450 Sending off my taxes today with intention and prayer that they will be used to support programs for the most vulnerable, and that my little contribution will join with others to help move us towards the country I know we can be. #taxmagic ✨
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Instagram post 2332756427273440195_13442450 So technically you’re not supposed to send food when trying to find an agent, but I did it it. 10 years ago, my granola helped seal that deal, and he insisted I send it to publishers when we were selling The Homemade Pantry (another general publishing no no) That Landed-a woman-with-no-platform-a-book deal Granola is up for grabs in this amazing bake sale, as well as goodies by some of my very favorite bakers (@madeinghent , @raisinporpoise , and @thedooryard to name a few). Oh and maybe my favorite item in there are the magical @susanspungen ginger chocolate cookies I mentioned a few weeks back, made by Sadie herself. All of this is to support the work of @multiculturalbridge , and the order form is up in my bio. Get to it! #bakersagainstracism
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Instagram post 2330131706816229761_13442450 I’ll be baking up a storm for this! Local bakers- there’s still room for more! Let @north_plain_farm know that you want IN.
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Instagram post 2322615811734696638_13442450 Black lives matter.
Instagram post 2319329508599466327_13442450 I did not bake these cookies, as I am no longer the cookie baker in this house. But this is the second time that  Sadie has made @susanspungen ‘s Triple-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies (and also the second time I’ve talked about a recipe Sadie has made from the #openkitchencookbook), and I think these might actually be the best cookies I have ever had. I’m often looking for the perfect ginger cookie and this is it, and I’d also choose it over a chocolate chip cookie (or let’s be honest-any other kind of cookie) any day.
Instagram post 2316311882260313364_13442450 No matter how many rulers and pizza cutters and other magical tools I use, it seems that the straight line will always elude me.
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Instagram post 2311325683330503572_13442450 @paulaperlis sent us @susanspungen ‘s new book and of course the first recipe Sadie picked is marked with the *project* heading. She’s been cooking all afternoon and the house smells like ✨✨✨ (With gorgeous images by @gentlandhyers ❤️)
Instagram post 2311141543964321092_13442450 When I took on a day job a few years ago, I found that the first thing to go was all the homemade stuff I’d been making and writing about over the years. I’m still going out to work most days, but I’m finding now with a full and captive house and more downtime in general that those things I love to make are back. For me, it’s granola, yogurt, bread. Hello, old friends!
Instagram post 2308503311808232748_13442450 All the things in the house pasta: roasted cauliflower, a few sad leaves of kale, one jar of fancy tuna saved for a special occasion (how about Wednesday?), Rosemary, homemade breadcrumbs from the freezer fried in butter, crispy sage leaves, pasta water, salt, so much pepper. Success!
Instagram post 2307412630968777107_13442450 @artbywoodgy made this beautiful thing for me for Mother’s Day. All the veggies are on Velcro so I can plan to my hearts delight.
Instagram post 2306345003953662730_13442450 Happy Mother’s Day to my brave and beautiful mom, who birthed two different humans in such different times in her life. With me she was so young, and she figured it all out just as she was learning how to be an adult. This picture was taken nineteen years later, when she was pregnant again and I was almost an adult myself. Thanks for keeping at it, Mom, and for always showing up with love. ❤️
Instagram post 2304888771283579843_13442450 What we do for cake.
Instagram post 2302665269449083186_13442450 It’s a magnolia year for sure.
Instagram post 2295808104927071821_13442450 A long time ago, Joey talked about his crush on this particular alien-like flower with a good friend of ours. Months later, little bulbs arrived in the mail. We put them in the ground last fall, and now they are everywhere. If that isn’t some kind of magic, I don’t know what is. ✨ (🙏🏻 to @wildflowers1 for the cool vase, too.)
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