UrDinkel Chocolate Chip Cookies
I love a good chocolate chip cookie and these ones, made with pure spelt flour, are wonderful.
In Switzerland, you can buy spelt flour at most local grocery stores (it’s called Dinkel in German and epeautre in French). However, to ensure you are getting pure spelt you want to make sure you buy UrDinkel / PurEpeautre flour.
The history of UrDinkel’s resurgence in Switzerland is an intersting one. First grown in the late Stone Age, spelt was a popular grain in Europe up until the 20th century. At this time wheat production was becoming more widespread (it yielded more grain per hectare) and it slowly replaced spelt in many places. By the 1990s, spelt production in Switzerland had trickled down to nearly nothing.
Its comeback in the last few decades is due mostly to a group of farmers who banded together and set up UrDinkel, an interest group that basically saved pure spelt from extinction.
The organization outlined the criteria for pure spelt, e.g. it must be produced in areas where it was traditionally grown, and the strain itself must be a traditional one and not crossed with wheat. They found willing farmers to produce the grain, with a focus on quality over quantity, and it was marketed heavily and, fortunately, adopted by Swiss consumers.
The UrDinkel headquarters are just up the hill from my house, and surrounded by UrDinkel fields marked with round signs. Taller than wheat, their long stalks make an impression—and it’s the same in baked goods, where the nutty flour adds a nice earthiness to baked goods, like these chocolate chip cookies.
These are a version of the chocolate chip cookies I always made, using the browned butter method that has been popular since Cook’s Illustrated wrote about it over a decade ago (though I’ve adjusted for spelt flour and scaled back on the sugar).
I love them stuffed to bursting with fine Swiss chocolate (I like this dark version from the Coop) , and sometimes I toss in some nuts like walnuts or pecans, or even some toasted coconut.
200 g UrDinkel flour (spelt flour)
1/2 tsp baking soda
170 g butter
150 g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
1 tsp salt
100 g dark chocolate, chopped
100 g walnuts, toasted (optional)
Preheat oven to 190 C / 375 F / gas mark 5.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda.
In a medium pot, brown 100g of the butter. Cook over medium heat until it smells nutty and starts to turn brown. Pour this into a large bowl, then whisk in the rest of the butter, sugar, and salt. Let this cool slightly, whisking every few minutes.
Whisk the eggs into the butter mixture.
Gently fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture.
Fold in the chopped chocolate and nuts, if using.
Form ping-pong sized balls with your cookie dough, place on parchment-lined baking sheets, and press down into discs.
Bake for about 9-11 minutes, or until you can smell the cookies and the tops have just set.
You can also use toasted almonds, pecans or coconut.
If you don’t have proper, moist brown sugar (it’s hard to find here in Switzerland), you can replace 2 tbsps of sugar with molasses and mix together until it resembles brown sugar.
I was recently featured in the Glückspost, holding a big tray of about these cookies and talking about my love for UrDinkel (and Gotthelf)!
Another great cookie?
Toblerone Oatmeal Cookies
