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Chef Alan Bergo Chewy Black Walnut Cookies

This recipe appears courtesy of Alan Bergo: James-Beard Award-winning chef, forager, and author of foragerchef.com.

With their crisp edges and rich, chewy centers, these black walnut cookies are perfect for serving with tea, as a snack, or taking on a hike. As they’re made from mostly black walnuts, they’re rich and packed with protein with a big black walnut flavor.

You’ll need a small brownie bite mold to make them or another mold that holds roughly 20 gram portions of cookie dough. The high oil content of the walnuts means the dough will spread out too much if rolled into balls and baked like regular cookies. After your first bite, I think you’ll agree the small investment is worth it.

I grind black walnuts in a spice grinder to make walnut flour here. If I’m not harvesting my own black walnuts, I’ll use Hammons Recipe Ready Black Walnuts.

The basic recipe will make light colored cookies which are great, but adding a little powdered fruit like serviceberries, mulberries, or aronia berries adds a great color that makes them really attractive. If you can’t find fruit to dry and grind in a spice grinder, you could use a few tablespoons of buckwheat flour, or just use all oat flour.

Makes about 20 - 1 oz cookies

INGREDIENTS:

  • 200 grams black walnuts for the dough (roughly 2 cups of Hammons Recipe Ready Black Walnuts) plus an extra 30 grams or roughly 1/3 cup for garnishing
  • ½ cup organic sugar or maple sugar
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 6 tablespoons rolled oats *see note
  • ½ teaspoon flaky salt, such as Maldon or just diamond kosher
  • Zest of half a lemon or a Meyer lemon
  • 1 egg

Equipment:

  • Square silicone cookie mold, 1 oz size
  • Spice grinder or coffee grinder
  • Measuring cups and measuring spoons
  • 2 quart mixing bowl
  • Two clean soup spoons for portioning cookies (optional)
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Directions

Lightly toast the 1/3 cup of black walnuts for garnishing in a pan until golden and reserve.

Pulse the sugar a few times in the spice grinder-it should still be coarse.

Working in small batches around 2 tablespoons at a time, grind the black walnuts as fine as possible in a spice grinder. It’s fine if the flour is a little chunky.

A great tip is to use chopsticks to clean the spice grinder between batches.

Grind the oats to a fine flour in the spice grinder.

Mix the oat flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

Put the ground walnuts, oat flour mixture and egg in a bowl. Grate the lemon zest onto the mixture, then stir until thoroughly combined.

Lightly oil the cookie mold.

Pack 20 gram chunks of dough (generous tablespoons) into the cookie mold, top with a sprinkle of toasted black walnuts, pressing them down into the mold. The dough will be sticky, so you can use two spoons to form it if needed. Chill the dough for 10 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Put the cookie mold into the oven and cook for 20 minutes, rotating the mold half-way through cooking. Remove the cookies and allow to cool for 10 minutes before attempting to unmold.

They should be light golden on the edges and slightly crisp, but still tender and chewy on the inside. Store the cookies in an air tight container at room temperature and they’ll last for a week.

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