This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe from Dorie’s Cookies is a cutie – baby buckwheat bars!
Dorie says:
The people of Brittany, on the western coast of France, call the flour they mill from buckwheat blé noir, or black wheat — the color is that dark. The flour we get is not always that dark, but it comes with the same distinctive rich, nutty flavor.
These are a naturally gluten-free sort of snacking cake (based on the size pieces Dorie suggests you cut) that Dorie has added chocolate to – her justification? “It was the color of these bars and that nut-like taste that made me want to add chocolate to them.” Well everything is better with chocolate, right?
She also offers the option to glaze the bars with chocolate which I didn’t but which would be delicious too. These taste like “healthy” treats (they are not really) and a chocolate glaze might just take it over the top to being a decadent dessert. If I glazed them I’d cut them larger though, more like brownies than tiny bite-sized cakes.
A note about baking with 100% naturally gluten-free buckwheat flour from Dorie:
If you’ve never baked with buckwheat, which contains no gluten, you might be surprised by the way the flour thickens as you mix it and by the texture you get when you bake it. Because I chose to make these 100-percent buckwheat, the bars bake to a pleasantly grainy texture, which is much more tempting than it sounds.
So yes, the batter is VERY thick and you might have trouble pouring it into the baking pan but just do your best and when it bakes it will smooth out. Dorie brushes eggwash over the top of these bars before they bake so they get a nice glaze – mine didn’t because I had an eggwhite that I needed to use up and didn’t want to crack an egg expressly for this (this was the day before I was leaving for France) which is why mine don’t exactly have a glaze but I will definitely try this another time (on brownies maybe?) as it is an appealing visual feature for bars like this.
I really enjoyed the couple I ate of these and my gluten-free friend who inherited the leftovers did too!
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Baby Buckwheat Bars on p 84 of Dorie’s Cookies!
Want more cookie recipes? Buy Dorie’s Cookies on Amazon
_________
Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from The Book Depository. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
_________
Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Dorie’s Cookies” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions 100% my own.
_________
Like this post? Get blog posts delivered to your inbox! Sign up here!
_________
MY BOOK! In the French kitchen with kids is out now! Click here for details and how to order!
These sound interesting- I may have to glaze them to make them a dessert!
These were surprisingly good to us!!…and yes, adding chocolate is always a good thing!! 😂
I hope you are enjoying your time in France. These were not a hit in my house and I really disliked the egg wash glaze maybe it was too thick. Anyway enjoy your vacation.
Ah that’s too bad they weren’t a hit. Can’t win ’em all!