Christmas cookies

Hi everyone!
Wondering what wheats to consider for Christmas cookies if I wanted to milk my own flour for cookies this year. I’m wondering if I should consider white Sonora or another soft wheat? Or a hard white wheat bolted?
Any thoughts?

I think a soft wheat will be best. Apparently red fife can be a hard or soft wheat. If you can find soft red fife flour then i think it’ll make nice cookies because of its cinnamon flavour.

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Thank you! I didn’t know there was a soft red fife. Red fife is a favorite!

If you can’t find the soft red fife flour then you can always mix a bit of hard red fife flour with some plain flour.

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For cookies and cakes, I often use einkorn or pima club wheats, but will happily use any other wheat variety (with hydration adjustments) because the whole grain aspect of even stronger flours prevents the finished product from being too tough from overdevelopment of gluten.

Whole grain pie crust is tricky though – I find some gluten hold-togetherness is helpful. I would go with hard white wheat as I did in this pop tart recipe.

I love this recipe for einkorn shortbread. I make it with regular butter, not vegan butter, so I needed a little more liquid. Extra vanilla extract works (2 tsp).
https://www.naturallyleavenedherbivore.com/post/100-whole-grain-einkorn-vegan-vanilla-shortbread

These call for einkorn too. (I’m a sucker for chocolate mint flavor.) When I used yecora rojo, wheat, which has about a million times more gluten strength than einkorn, I needed more liquid but the texture was still nice/not tough.

Snickerdoodles with Pima Club wheat

Tartine No3 Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies are on repeat throughout the year at my house.
https://thelemonapron.com/salted-chocolate-rye-cookies/

Biscotti using Kamut flour – probably will make these in the next few weeks.

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True! That and the fat will make a strong flour even weaker. Plus, even though these ancient grains are “strong” their protein is very different. Now you’ve really peaked my interest Melissa. Vegan Einkorn Vanilla Shortbread, Einkorn and Rye Chocolate Cookies and Kamut Biscotti. They all look and sound delicious.

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Shortbread lovers, cover your ears for a second…

I never much liked shortbread until I made this recipe with whole grain einkorn flour. Way more dimension and not paste-y. I love the cookies in that recipe.

Thank you Melissa!
What’s the difference between the Pima club versus the soft white wheat on the website?
Jeanne

I haven’t done a taste test of the two, but I’m attaching a pic. Soft white on left; Pima club on right.
Pima is a little rounder.

The development/trajectory of these two wheats on the American continent has probably been different. I don’t know much about the seed history of our soft white wheat. It is grown organically on a family-owned and -operated farm. And our Pima club wheat is grown also organically by the Pima Native American people on the Gila River Reservation. It’s an heritage wheat variety that was brought to the American southwest 300 years ago.

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Thank you.

I saw yesterday that this is available for free download. 12 cookie recipes that each focus on a different grain.

Edited to add the featured grains:
amaranth, barley, buckwheat, corn, millet, oat, rice, rye, sorghum, spelt, teff, wheat

Oooh love it what fun!! thank you!

Christmas cookie cutters & tessellations

My mom and I want to bake cookies and take them to church for Christmas. I know it’s a long time before Christmas, but I want make a plan now. We moved to Portland two months ago, and I still don’t have friends here. Can you imagine how bored I am that I’m already thinking about cookies for Christmas? Lol. When I lived in Australia, all the parishioners at church always treated cookies to each other at church, but I don’t know if people at this Portland church will like it. I don’t want to look stupid because I have to go to this church for 1 year at least
. I’d be happy to get an advice. Thanks you !

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Make the cookies! While not everyone appreciates the work that goes into Christmas cookies - ALL will want to eat them! It’s a lovely gesture.
By the way I’m already making my cookie plan too!

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