TWD: Granola Grabbers

[I baked these cookies very early, because I knew I was headed out of town for posting day. I set this up in advance to post on Tuesday while I'm gone.]

Granola cookies must be part of the zeitgeist. Last week King Arthur Flour's blog featured granola bars, and here we are making Dorie's Granola Grabbers! (Chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking. You can find the recipe on her post or on page 82 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours.

I was happy about this choice because it gave me a great excuse to try making homemade granola and to check out a cool-looking cookie recipe. I made several batches of granola, and we've been eating it for breakfast every day for the past week!


First, mix all the dry/chopped ingredients in a bowl.


With the stand mixer (I love my yellow KA!), cream the butter, and slowly add the wet ingredients, beating after each addition. Some of the beating times seemed really long to me, but I guess that's to make the dough fluffy?


Then add the dry ingredients to the wet, carefully stirring. Drop rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet, flatten slightly and bake. Pretty easy!

I departed ever so slightly from the recipe. I used:
-half AP flour and half King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour
-chopped sour cherries and some raisins (I'm obsessed with Trader Joe's Tart cherries)
-unsweetened coconut because that’s what I had
-whole almonds, hand chopped (I was out of slivered)
-plain yogurt substituted for about 15% of the butter

The Verdict:

Mine had a lot of wheat germ (it's an ingredient in my granola also, as is oat bran) and white whole wheat flour, so they had a nice earthy and wholesome taste. Even with all that wheat and oats stuff, there were enough wet ingredients to bind them together. Once they cooled, they held together nicely.

The cookies were not overly sweet for two reasons: my granola is not particularly sweet and I used tart cherries and unsweetened coconut. I don't think they would have tasted any better if they were sweeter; the flavor of the ingredients really came through.

My daughter was not a huge fan: "If I'm going to eat a cookie, I want it to taste amazing". Which I think she means rich and sinful. I see her point.

My husband enjoyed them; this is his type of baked good. But he didn't like the peanuts, saying "They remind me of Jimmy Carter." Being a Georgia boy, he's had a lot of exposure to Jimmy. Ha ha. Actually, he didn't care for the peanut flavor in the cookie; to him peanuts are a little bitter. Next time I think I'd use pecans -another Georgia nut with no known associations with ex-Presidents! :)

I told my husband to bring the cookies to work and put them in the break room, but he liked them too much to give them all away. I also see his point; in fact I've managed to polish several off, strictly for research and evaluation purposes of course.

My personal opinion is mixed. I knew these would not be a decadent cookie, and they weren't. I don't require every dessert to be rich and spectacular, and I love whole grain baking, which I do ALL the time. I did really like the grabbers but at the same time I think I enjoy snacking on a handful of my granola just as much. With the cookie there's added butter and sugar, which I'll only justify if I love the flavor. With all the cookie recipes out there (and we've been baking lots of cookies this summer, including some near-perfect oatmeal cherry ones that I didn't post because I forgot to take a picture of them), I 'm not sure I'd make these again.