Blueberry Brownie Cookies

July 30, 2012 Laura

Well, we finally did it! We went blueberry picking. Scarlett and her friends rose early one morning and raided the local farm by our cottage. (You’ll actually see the whole field trip later this week in our newsletter.) After a few fights over baskets that culminated with a spill in my front yard, I was left with 90 million blueberries. So what’s a girl to bake?

I considered a pie, a crumble, tarts and muffins but none of those recipes really excited me. I wanted a cookie. Then I remembered a chocolate cookie recipe from my favorite vegan restaurant here in Toronto, Fresh. Their cookbook, refresh, has a chocolate brownie treat that calls for maple syrup so I thought, “What if I make a blueberry syrup with the berries and sub that in? Will it work?”

Photos by Maya Visnyei

You bet your cookie-loving butt it did. It’s a dense, chocolate-y cookie that gets a blueberry boost with the syrup as well as a dollop of jam on top.

Blueberry Brownie Cookies

Ingredients

For the cookies:
5 cups barley flour
2 1/2 cups cocoa, sifted
1 1/2 cups homemade blueberry syrup
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
1 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For the syrup:
6 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup water
2 cups blueberries, washed

Method

Preheat oven to 350.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Place blueberries in a medium size sauce pan with water and simmer on medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until consistency thickens a bit.

Strain liquid through a fine collander, pressing solids to get all the juice out. Put the blueberry solids aside (jam).

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine the cocoa powder and barley flour.

In a separate bowl, mix the syrups, oil and chocolate chips.

Add the wet ingredients into the flour mixture.

This will be a tough mix but don't be discouraged.

Roll a tablespoon of dough in hands and then place on prepared cookie sheet.

Press the ball of dough with the back of a spoon, leaving a little indent for filling with jam.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Cool on wire rack.

Place a dollop of blueberry jam from strainer onto the cookies before they completely cool.

Sweet Potato Chronicles

These treats are really a cross between a cookie and a brownie which, in my book, is not a bad thing. I somehow rationalized that they were also super healthy with the addition of blueberries and didn’t stop eating them. Scarlett had the same problem until my senses returned. She also asked if I could make the blueberry syrup for her pancakes. What a great idea I thought. Then she asked if she could do shots of the blueberry syrup. Bad idea.