I first learned about mesquite flour a couple of years ago through Heidi's blog and her famous mesquite and chocolate chip cookies. I was very intrigued by the new flour, but never got around to using it until a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing the shelves of a health food store and there I found it again.
I had to buy it, of course, and experiment with it. When I opened the bag, I got a wave of cinnamon, chocolate and coffee notes. Warm and lovely.
Come to find out, mesquite meal, which comes from the mesquite tree, has been an integral part of the daily diet of Native Americans for centuries. It has a low glycemic-index and is rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and zinc, and the amino acid lysine.
I have been using it in many different preparations. J's favorite seems to be the mesquite and chocolate chip pancakes I have been making on the weekends with the mesquite flour, palm sugar, hemp milk and lots of mini chocolate chips. (Palm sugar is also another one of my favorite latest discoveries). Heidi was on to something with her cookies as the warm spicy aroma of the mesquite goes perfectly with chocolate.
I always like to have logs of unbaked cookie dough in the freezer for those unexpected afternoon treats and yes, sometimes even a bribing technique. So a few days ago, I spent an entire afternoon mixing cookie dough batches and freezing them.
Amongst other more traditional cookies like chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and lemon sugar, I thought the slightly sour raspberries would be great with the aroma of mesquite and the texture of the cocoa nibs. I even dried my own raspberries in the dehydrator, which I hadn't used in months. 
Of course, you should know by now that the cookies are gluten free and no one even knew it. Perfect.
Raspberry, Cocoa Nib and Mesquite Cookies
110 grams non-hydrogenated shortening or butter
110 grams brown sugar
55 grams sugar
1 egg
150 grams superfine brown rice flour
50 grams tapioca starch
25 grams mesquite flour
3 grams baking soda
4 grams salt
50 grams cocoa nib
20 grams dried raspberries
Cream together the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light. Add the egg and mix. Scrape the mixture well. Whisk together the superfine brown rice flour, tapioca starch, mesquite flour, salt and baking soda. Add the dry to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Fold in the dried raspberries and cocoa nib.
Dump the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and shape it into a log. Wrap the log with the parchment and refrigerate for a couple of hours.
Cut the log into 1/4" disks and bake at 350F for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden.
6.07.2010
Raspberry, Cocoa Nib and Mesquite Cookies
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86 comments:
I'd love to taste mesquite flour! I only know liquid smoke made with that tree... Your cookies look terrific and so do your pictures!
Cheers,
Rosa
what! i've never heard of mesquite flour! these look amazing, i will have to try them soon.
I have never heard of mesquite flour! I am going to have to check it out. Any recommendations on where to purchase online. Those cookies look amazing, and I am going to have to try for my honey.
Angie- Gluten Free Mall (www.glutenfreemall.com) is a good place. Also Amazon.com... Many places. Easy to find if you google it. Let me know if you try it and see what you think.
Thank you!
beautiful, i wondered if we can get the flour at wholefoods?
Nadia- I posted my last comment and then I got yours. Sorry... Not sure if WF carries it. Mine doesn't but all stores are different. Check with them. Thank you!
Those cookies look so good, love the photos as well
These look all together tasty! I love the photos!
Your gluten-free baking looks like so much fun! I almost wish we had such possibilities round here. For the time being, I keep enjoying genuine wheat flour straight from the mill - it's so pure that it makes me want to make yeast dough all the time just to knead it and feel its lightness.
I'll have to buy the mesquite flour, sounds like I'd love it! Your cookies look yummy, and the photos are even yummier :)
LOOKS GREAT!!!!
Sounds really interesting. I love to bake but my husband is diabetic. I'm going to check and see if there are fewer carbs in this flour. It's worth checking out, your cookies are beautiful!
Lightning- mesquite flours GI is supposed to be low, although you have to use some other flour in the recipe. Also, have you tried palm sugar? It has avvery low GI and it tastes great!
Thanks all!
Oh my these look absolutely delish! I haven't heard of mesquite flour, would love to try this recipe if I can get my hands on them in London. I'm from Singapore, and palm sugar is widely used in Asian cooking and desserts, interesting that you've used it in pancakes, will try that sometime soon!
These cookies look wonderful. I will keep an eye out for mesquite flour the next time I'm at the store. Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe and your discovery.
Wow, wow, wow.
These look terrific. I love the use of cocoa nibs.
I've never even heard of mesquite flour and I'm not sure we can get it here in the UK but I'll have a look online.
Fantastic photography as usual!
Love this, just the name alone is amazing!
Aran, thanks for the link! I ordered some of the flour and hoping it gets here by the weekend. Will definitely let you know how they worked. I am excited because I've never baked anything gluten-free so curious to see if I notice any difference. Thanks again, and so glad I found your blog this morning!
I always love your posts so much! I have been battling a gluten intolerance for almost 5 years, and your wonderful recipes always make happy. You've inspired me to share my gluten free food advice and start my own blog! I cannot compete with your beautiful creations and photography, but everything helps for us food allergy sufferers :)
http://glutenfreecheerleader.blogspot.com/
These are precious, Aran! So beautiful. I have got to find out if there's mesquite flour here in Brazil.
Beautiful photography. And the cookies look delicious too! Wonderful blog.
I've been wanting to try mesquite flour after chatting to someone about it. Amazing that 25g of the flour lends so much flavour to the cookie dough! Fab :)
After reading this blog, I'm going to try baking with mesquite flour. Those cookies of yours look amazing!
Oh my. These look positively heavenly. I've never heard of mesquite flour but I'm putting in an order ASAP!
I want one! These biscuits seem to be so yumm!
& Beautiful photos
Gaelle
Ohh, we share your love of mesquite and use mesquite powder quite a lot in desserts. Beautiful photos and recipe idea as always :)
I love experimenting with new flours...it's like opening up your world to new flavors. I'm trying mesquite next!
these pictures are so intoxicating!!!
they look delicious, i would like to try them, most of the ingredients are new for me. Great pictures and colors. Amazing food styling.
I've never tasted mesquite.... these cookies look amazing!
The Peach Kitchen
blowing peachkisses
peach and things
estoy intrigadisima, tengo que encontrar esta harina cueste lo que cueste, tus galletitas tienen una pinta estupenda, besitos desde londres
He oido hablar de esta harina pero no la he utilizado. Unas galletitas delicosas y unas fotos espectaculares.
Un beso
FAvolosi!Ciao a presto
No puedo ni imaginarme esa harina que desde aquí suena tan lejana...ya sabes que por aquí si nos sacas de la maicena ya nos volvemos locos... pero seguro que esas galletitas son deliciosas... las fotos como siempre... comestibles...
Bss...
Nunca he usado esta harina, me he quedado muy intrigada.
Muchas gracias por hacernos descubrir nuevos ingredientes.
delicious - and the previous posts' bread looks fab am going to try it this weekend.
glad you're enjoying your newfound gluten free flours too - there's so many to choose from!
I adore cocoa nibs they give such delicious crunch to cookies. Where did you get that big tube of baker's twine Aran, I always find the smaller ones. Gorgeous pics, as usual my dear.
Belle découverte que cette farine ! Tu pourrais me dire quel est l'équivalent français pour le "tapioca starch" ?
Veron- I can't remember! I dint know how I found te ship( which was super cute) and ordered it in blue and yellow. I tried looking in my inboxes to see I'd I could find their order confirmation email but I couldn't. Had deleted them. It was a design shop where they do cards, etc. Something like Whisker, Whistler... I can't believe I didn't bookmark it! If I find it, I'll email u ok? Sorry...
Valerie- tapioca starch is the same as tapioca flour. Could you find that in France? If not, you can use cornstarch.
Thank you everyone!
I wish I had a cupboard big enough to have all those ingredients you make us discover. Everything looks so yummy!
¡Muchas gracias!
These look so great. Yummm
Found it, Aran! It's whiskergraphics on etsy. I am so in trouble, so many cute stuff! ;)
Veron- yay! thank you! btw, i apologize for the typos in my comment back to you. i was typing from my iphone and distracted by little M!
thanks everyone!
I absolutely love the idea of having unbaked cookie dough logs in the freezer! Why haven't I been doing that all along? Also, very curious to give this mesquite flour a try. Everything looks great!
http://amusebouche-caitlin.blogspot.com/
Raspberries, how do I love thee? These cookies look delicious. I will have to try them considering my fetish for any recipe with raspberries.
I've never used tapioca starch in cooking. I'm not sure I'll be able to find it in Australia...
It looks so so yummy
I made these cookies yesterday and the taste is wonderful, but they spread like the dickens. They were very thin and crispy, not at all like in your photos. I weighed everything exactly, so I'm not sure what happened. They have spread in a way that seems like the batter doesn't have enough flour. What would you suggest?
I'm with you on the logs of cookie dough "just in case." So much so, that I unearthed ~5 kinds when I had to move this summer! Whoops! And you've intrigued me with the mesquite flour - it sounds absolutely wonderful!
Eso es para Pity, Curra y Xanela
Cuando ustedes gallegos han llegado para Argentina ustedes han pensando que los arboles con vainas en Argentina (Prosopis) eran algarrobos (Ceratonia siliqua), y entonces ahorita, los Prosopis en Argentina (que producen mesquite flour) esten Prosopis alba o algarrobos. En la idioma quecha, los algarrobos eran conocido como Tacu, eso es para decir "El arbol" para las frutas usada por las humanas y animales, lena, enriquicimiento del suelos (fijacion de nitrogeno). Este gringo ha trabajado con 5 anos en Argentina mejorando estes arboles con metodos clasico genetico. Hecho un sociedad con uno la mas humilde dioceses en Argentina para elaborar este harina. Un mujer que este jefa del escuela para adultos este encargada la elaboracion. Ustedes podrian comprar este harina de casa de fruta en EEUU
Besos
Peter
Peter_Felker@hotmail.com
Those look delicious and pretty, all at the same time. I've never had or heard of mesquite flour, can't wait to check it out.
I've never heard of mesquite flour!
Your cookies are gorgeous and so are your pictures!
Dear Aran,
My query is not related to this particular post, delicious as these cookies look!
The other night I made your burnt milk icecream recipe and it turned out great, though I am not sure if I 'burnt' the milk enough. What I was a little confused by were the measurements i.e grams of milk, egg, etc as I am used to ozs. I obviously managed to pull the recipe together nonetheless but I would prefer to have some guidelines so I get it right each time. My mother is a huge fan of icecream that has more milk and less cream so I reckon I'll be making this often :-)
Do you have any guidelines on conversion of measurements? I know an oz. of flour is around 28 grams but what about liquids?
Your photos are wonderful.
Tamiko- So sorry to hear that... I'm not sure what it could have been. They are barely supposed to spread. My only thought was to have mis-scaled the recipe somehow. This is the same cookie recipe I use all the time with different variations and it works every time. Try it again and let me know.
LoveLife LoveFood- yes, 1 oz is 28.375 grams and you can apply the same principle to liquids. Hope that helped!
Thank you!
I kept inspecting mesquite for some time, but last evening when I saw your post, I placed my order. I will receive it tomorrow together with some yacon syrup I wanted to try as well.
I was however wondering why you used so little mesquite flour (proportionally)? Is the taste too strong or will texture suffer?
Anda- 25 grams of mesquite is actually more in volume than what it seems as it is such a light flour. Also, it would make the cookies perhaps soft and I just wanted to add it as a flavor not so much as the "structure" of the cookie. Does it make sense? Kind of like adding cocoa powder.
Thank you!
I understand what you mean. I do not know yet how it "feels" that is why I asked. But I am getting more and more curious now :)
Absolutely lovely! This looks like the perfect summer cookie.
Yummy! this looks delicious! btw, i love your photos too!!!
Mesquite flour sounds lovely! Also, how long does a stash of frozen cookie dough keep in the freezer?
Jenious- a log of raw cookie dough, if well wrapped, will last a good couple of months in the freezer but it's never that long in my house! :)
thanks all!
wow, yet another flour....and made out of a tree. i bet that's $$$$$.
sounds good, i'd eat it. i made gf cookies that look a little like that too, lumpy and loggish. i wonder how to make them more attractive...
hey i saw your interview over at Donny's blog, looks great. he interviewed me too!
bisous
what wonderful photos! Great color combos throughout too! Love how you always show someone holding the food!
The Design Dish
http://thedesigndish.wordpress.com/
these look like soooooo good : )
Gracias Peter. El algarrobo es un sucedáneo del chocolate para muchas personas. Es por eso que las galletas de Aran tienen ese colorcito chocolate.
Lovely colours in the pictures! It's always so interesting to hear about "new" undiscovered flour types.
Mallory- the mesquite meal is indeed a bit more expensive but it goes a long way.
Ines- zelako komentarioa itzi dau horrek? Ez dot ezer ulertu!!
Thanks everyone!
These cookies look positively delicious. I had never heard of mesquite flour and will certainly look for it. Lovely post!
Aran, i have been learning so much from you with all the different flours. I want to create some of my own recipes and I wonder if there any tips that you can give in terms of ingredients ratio. These are lovely cookies. I found an internet company that does it so I will be ordering it.As always this blog is very inspirational.
Valentina- Makes me happy to hear you are learning along with me because I'm still learning so much too. As for the ratios, you have to play around a little bit. I use a basic GF mix from Cybele Pascal's book that calls for 4 cups superfine brown rice flour, 1 1/3 cups potato starch and 2/3 tapioca starch. This is 1:1 conversion with wheat flour. This is good to adapt the recipes you already use. Just remember to add xanthan gum.
However, I like to incorporate other grains. I read about them and their characteristics and usually there is a some information on the package as for how much to add to the recipe, etc. So I start with that and then adapt.
Hope that was helpful!
Thank you and have a great weekend everyone!
Aran, thank you so much for being so prompt. I have written it all down in my notebook and now it is just a nice little journey. bumpy at times i am sure - but it is definitely important.
My kids will definitely love this one. They like those breakfasts! Yummy!
Cookies are yummy,I love cookies very much.I would love to have these calcium rich cookies.
Hi Aran, it's me with another question: have you used xantha gum in this recipe? if so, how much would you have used?
Valentina- I didn't add any xanthan gum to these because they are crumbly and really don't need the texture xanthan gum provides. If I don't have to use it, the better. But usually, it's 1/4-1/2 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour, depending on the recipe. Hope that helps!
Mesquite flour- totally new to me. Thanks, as always, for the great ideas and inspiration.
Hi, I voted for your blog for the Versatile Blogger Award. Check it out: http://freesparrowetsy.blogspot.com/2010/06/dekuju-moc.html
Hello! I have no words! everything is perfect, wrapped in a light dream! Soon
These cookies look yummy and these are great images.
Love your blog!, I invite you to visit mine: http://mapiurka.blogspot.com/
Best regards from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Maricel
Huh..we were gifted a bag of cocoa nibs, and have had zero idea what to make with them, cause just eating straight has been fairly hideous, lol. Gonna have to try these. Wonder if my HFS carried mesquite flour? I've never heard of it.
I tried your recipe for an office lunch today (although I modified it quite a bit). Despite the fact that I had posted a huge sign in front of the plate that the cookies were vegan and gluten-free, they were gone in a second. In fact, they were even more popular than other conventional wheat-based cookies at the table. Thank you for your wonderful recipes!
I want to be a child...and drink milk with this marvellous cookies!!!
This site is beautiful!
Being diabetic, your blog about this cookie is great. Sort of dragging my foot in buying the mesquite meal but your blog inspires me to buy it now. Thank You.
By the way, I've been following your blogs but haven't tried the yummy looking recipes, especially the dessert and bread recipes, because of my diabetes. Your blog site is wonderful. I really do wonder how you have time for so much cooking. With my commercial peony farm and my regular garden, cooking is at the bottom right now.
Hi Aran,
I absolutely adore your blog and I was inspired to try these cookies today. I had the same experience as Tamiko (above) in that my cookies spread out quite dramatically and ended up thin and crispy instead of holding their shape. I'm a professional pastry chef, and I know I scaled the recipe correctly, so I'm wondering what happened. Did you use dark or light brown sugar? Was the butter room temp. when you creamed it? Do you bake the cookies from frozen? Just trying to think of all the variables...let me know what you think. The cookies are still delicious, though! Many thanks!
Briar- I doubled checked the recipe and there are no typos in the amounts. The butter us indeed room temp. This is the same cookie recipe I make a million times with other variations so I know it works. I think the issue is when I say cream the butter and sugar until light. Are you camping it for a long time? I should say cream the butter and sugar until incorporated because it really doesn't need to be beat that long or it will incorporate too much air and yes, spread too much. The brown sugar is light.
So I will change the wording. Try them again with less creaming. Maybe a minute on medium speed.
Sorry it didn't work out for you.
Thanks.
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