The Cutest Cookies You've Ever Seen

Small things are just cuter.

Babies. Puppies. Doughnut peaches. Violets. Tiny pairs of shoes (they never look as cute in my size!).

And what could be cuter than tiny, tiny cookies? These little darlings use only 1/2 teaspoon of dough per cookie. You can fit a dozen in the palm of your hand. Which is good because that's probably how many you're going to want in a serving. At least.

I now fully understand why my parents didn't allow me to eat Cookie Crisp while growing up. I think these cookies, with their wheat flour, oats and molasses, are probably healthier than that "cereal" ever was.

I enjoyed these tiny cookies on their own, but Heidi from 101 Cookbooks recommended making them into the cutest ice cream sandwiches. I'm thinking about dipping the leftovers in chocolate and mixing them into David Lebovitz's Milk Chocolate Ice cream.


The Cutest Darn Cookies You've Ever Seen 
recipe adapted from 101 Cookbooks

I upped the chocolate slightly from Heidi's recipe (5 ounces to 6 ounces). I substituted walnuts for pecans because that's what I had on hand. Heidi topped her cookies with some large-grain sugar, but I left it off my cookies. They seemed sweet enough without it! I added a chill in the fridge to make the cookie dough easier to shape. The recipe will yield about 12-dozen cookies.

Ingredients
6 ounces chocolate (I used Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips because I had no bars)
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup pecans, very, very finely chopped
1/2 cup butter, unsalted, at room temperature
scant 1 cup brown sugar
scant 1 teaspoon molasses
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

Finely chop the chocolate into 1/8-inch pieces. It will resemble chocolate shavings. Avoid big pieces. You want to be able to easily flatten out the cookie dough later, without anything getting in the way.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, oats, pecans and shaved chocolate. Set aside.

Using a mixer, beat the butter until fluffy. Beat in the sugar and continue mixing until it is light and fluffy Scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Beat in the molasses, and then add the egg, mixing until both are well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla.

Add the flour mixture, and stir by hand until ingredients just combine in a uniform dough.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.

Scoop out the dough into exact teaspoons. Remove the dough from the teaspoon and tear it in half into two equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and then flatten it into a thin, round circle.

Place the cookies an inch apart on a prepared cookie sheet. My cookies baked for 5 minutes, until they were golden brown but still soft.