Happy Father's Day Low-Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy Father's Day, everyone! My father taught me how to make real southern biscuits and how to grill onion-stuffed hamburgers, but he has no idea what to do when it comes to baking cookies. And he loves cookies, so this has been a real handicap for him. He has to depend on my mom and I to make him cookies, which we do for special occassions. 

My dad is also pre-diabetic, and everything he eats is low in sugar or sugar-free. Now I don't even want to know what a sugar-free homebaked chocolate chip cookie would taste like, but I made these low-sugar ones, and they taste pretty similar to regular chocolate chip cookies. The secret: tons of nice vanilla and almond extract, half butter/half margarine, White Lily flour, and egg whites only. 

Low-Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from the Guittard Standard Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups of White Lily All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (+ more for sprinkling over the tops before baking)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup margarine or shortening, softened

1 1/4 cup Splenda

1/4 cup brown sugar (these are low sugar, not NO sugar!)

2 large egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

2 cups (or less, depending on your taste) semisweet chocolate chips -- the darker, the better, IMO

1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. 

2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. 

3. In a large bowl, cream the butters/margarines with the sugars until light. Beat in the egg whites and vanilla and almond extract until smooth. Gradually add the flour mixture until combined. Add in the chocolate chips and nuts. 

4. Drop by the teaspoon onto a baking sheet (I prefer to use parchment paper on these and then there's no cleanup). Bake for 8-10 minutes or until light brown. Allow to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet and then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Flour and Sugar,
Carrie Melissa

Nathalie Dupree, My Mother, and a Southern Kitchen of My Own

Like many of my other adventures, this one began with a book. It did not begin with me making some rash decision to start whipping up sugar, flour, and butter in my kitchen. It began with a book that my mother gave to me, like a family treasure, something you hand to someone with a whisper and say, "Now is your time, little one. Follow your dreams."

My mother is not easily impressed. As a child, this led me to sign up for a bevy of extracurricular activities in order to gain her approval. When I quit the volleyball team because I couldn't serve the ball over the net, I was too afraid to tell my mother. Instead, I would wander around my middle school for an hour after classes got out just so she would think I was going to practice. In college, I called my mom when I was accepted to present my thesis at a university in Wisconsin. She told me that was good, but she wasn't about to pay for my airfare (I hadn't even had a chance to ask!). After college, I gave up and left the country. And I'd given up ever since then. 

Until. Oh, until. 

One afternoon, I was talking about making real southern biscuits and selling them, and my mom turned to me and said, "You need to read Nathalie Dupree. You can't do this without researching first." She walked to the kitchen, pulled the cookbook off the shelf, and handed it to me. "Follow her recipes," she said calmly, and went back to watching Entertainment Tonight and completing Wednesday's crossword puzzle. 

And so I've been researching ever since. In fact, Nathalie Dupree has guided me to the most perfect (and easiest) pie crust recipes for my pecan tassies. My mother was right, as she so often is, without saying a word. Maybe now I'll actually be able to impress her. 

... A Southerner's True Love

Flour and Sugar,
Carrie Melissa

Oh, why hello there!

Today, I am ushering this project into the blogosphere, which basically means it actually has to happen now.

So you might be wondering what "this project" even is. How convenient, since I was just about to explain!

Baking makes my heart smile. When I'm not at work or volunteering or studying for the GRE or running, I'm baking. And it's pretty much all I ever want to do even while I'm doing all of the aforementioned things: talk about baking, write about baking, shoot photos of my baking, read other people's baking chronicles, maybe sleep with some pies beside my bed (okay, I wasn't supposed to disclose that kind of information). But I had been wondering if my baking would stand up to the San Francisco litmus test. After all, I live in the city of Tartine, Sandbox, and Mission Pie. And I've never been to culinary school. But despite the fact that I can't make croissants and I am deathly afraid of ruining every layer cake I ever promise to make for my friends' birthdays, I realized that nobody makes dessert like my mother. And, especially, no one makes pecan pies the right way, a.k.a. the southern way, which is what I've been raised on.

Oh, yes, my Internet friends, I'm a southern girl in San Francisco. I'm a Georgia Peach raised by Tennessee rednecks (let's be real) in the Bay Area. It's been quite the cultural experience. My mom, who now only bakes for major national holidays, used to fill the kitchen with banana puddings, pecan pies, chicken and dumplings, cobblers, and chicken pot pies. Thus, pie crust is one of my oldest and dearest friends. 

And so my passion found an outlet in this project. I decided I would bring authentic, homemade southern baked goods to the Bay Area. But I've lived in the Bay Area for well over half my life, so I have to put my own spin on things: All of my ingredients are sourced from local farmers, my friend who grows fruit and raises chickens and bees, and various farmer's markets. This is with one caveat. I refuse to bake with anything other than White Lily flour, which my family brings back from trips to Tennessee every few months. So it's not technically adding to my carbon footprint to use this stuff, since I'm not shipping it separately. Consequently, this is a project in sustainable southern baking. So eat for the good of the earth! If you put down your bag of stale Chips Ahoy cookies and pick up a pie from your friendly neighbor (i.e. me), it is my firm belief that you will save the lives of countless innocent baby animals. And you're also participating in your community, eating healthier, and just being a generally smart person. So that's cool. 

Now, I love Paula Deen as much as the next guy, but I'm not a butter fiend, nor do I fall back on bacon as a crutch. My main baking influences are my mother (who started cooking with tofu in Atlanta in the early 90s. Now that's progressive.), the fine pastry chefs at Chez Panisse, and Alexa Johnston, the author of Ladies, A Plate, a cookbook of the most treasured traditional New Zealand baked goods, which I discovered during my year abroad in Kiwi-Land. Much of my baking experience comes from my year abroad, when my friend and I stayed on farms and baked cakes and trifles with the fruits that we harvested each day in the spring.

Anyway, that's enough from me. Stay tuned to learn more about my trials and tribulations as I get this project rolling. I am still in Phase 1 here, people. Many mistakes are sure to be on the horizon. I'll have the photos to prove it.

Flour and Sugar, 

Carrie Melissa