What to do with a surplus of buckwheat cocoa nib cookies?
January 3, 2016 8:23 PM   Subscribe

Due to some overambitious cookie baking for holiday baking exchanges, I have a whole batch of Alice Medrich's nibby buckwheat butter cookies hanging out in the fridge (recipe here). I've eaten my share and I'm getting bored with them—can you think of a good recipe to use the rest of the batch up?

These have a mild flavor: a butter cookie with earthiness from the buckwheat flour and a nice texture from the cocoa nibs but not a lot of chocolate flavor. Not very rich. They're kind of a snooze and I'd love some creative ideas on what to do. I have a feeling they'd make a nice shortbread crust or be good as sandwich cookies, but after a full month of baking I'm not feeling very creative, I recently made brown butter sandwich cookies with cherry jam and another batch with nutella so I'm bored with those flavors but open to anything else! Please help me out with this delicious problem!
posted by the thorn bushes have roses to Food & Drink (14 answers total)
 
I admit this isn't very creative, but I would freeze them. I would expect them to keep very well for at least a few weeks. If you find that you don't like them after they are thawed, take the rest of them to the office.
posted by Bruce H. at 8:42 PM on January 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


That recipe looks delicious: thanks for sharing! I know you've asked for a recipe but here's a general idea: how about baking and giving away the leftovers? You could wrap small stacks in wax paper and then tie them with twine for a post-holiday gift at work or for neighborhoods. Even if they're on diets and say no thanks, people will surely appreciate the gesture. (I know I would!)
posted by smorgasbord at 8:43 PM on January 3, 2016


Response by poster: To clarify, these are already baked. They'll keep indefinitely so I'm fine with freezing 'em, but I'd love to make something else with them because I find them boring as-is. I've given these cookies in the last month to everyone in my life who would appreciate them already. :) Remix ideas appreciated!
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 8:45 PM on January 3, 2016


Maybe they'd add some good crunch to ice cream or a milkshake? I love crumbled cookies on top of pudding, too.
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:51 PM on January 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Best answer: Baked cookies are not the most versatile thing, and they'll only really marry with sweets, which you said you're not in the mood to be making more of, so this is a tricky one.

Crumble as a topping over ice cream, any pie or tart I can imagine at the moment. If you make your own ice-cream, this would be a good stir-in.

Maybe they could also be crumbled into a pie crust under a custard or creme pie. Or they could be half of a graham cracker crust?

You've got cookies, so make cookie butter. The archetypal cookie butter is gingery, but there's no law about that.

I'm trying to think of what uses cookies as structural elements, the way tiramisu does; these (not crumbled, by maybe chopped into rectangles to make them easy to layer) could be transformed into a crunchy base layer of some kind of dessert bar, or even a whipped dessert-- use them in place of Vanilla Wafers it any kind of confection.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:56 PM on January 3, 2016


Response by poster: Since this is quite the cupboard challenge, I want to just add after seeing Sunburnt's answer (with great ideas!): I'm totally fine with more sweet things/baking and not sick of sweets, just the cookies on their own! I listed the sandwich cookie fillings I used in another cookie (nutella, cherry jam) because they're too similar to these buckwheat cookies and I wanted something different, but I'd love more ideas for sandwich cookie fillings, etc. Now I'll butt out!
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 9:03 PM on January 3, 2016


Best answer: Because I love bread pudding, I would chop up the cookies and use them in place of bread cubes in a sweet bread pudding recipe. There are many and I'd pick one and add extras that I liked (chocolate, nuts, etc).
posted by Bella Donna at 9:48 PM on January 3, 2016


Best answer: Crust for a banana cream pie!
posted by quince at 10:35 PM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


N'thing pie crust.
posted by sarajane at 5:23 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Ice cream sandwiches?
posted by peppermind at 7:50 AM on January 4, 2016


Best answer: Brown butter frosting? So creamy and full of almost-burned rich cararmel. The hazelnut (or maybe pecan) praline topping from the same link might also be good.
posted by RoadScholar at 7:59 AM on January 4, 2016


Best answer: Any leftover cookies I'm tired of or past their peak get tossed into a food processor and then turned into pie crust. I made a key lime pie with leftover gingersnaps once, and that's my new favorite combination.

Yours, based on the flavor description and my glance at the recipe, seem to be kind of buttery and earthy/hearty flavors, so peanut butter pie, nutella pie, cookie butter pie, banana (cream) pie, gingerbread pie/cheesecake, persimmon, pumpkin, egg custard, and/or cheesecake would all be excellent uses for that kind of yummy cookie crumb crust.
posted by PearlRose at 8:26 AM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: BANANA CREAM PIE! I think that's the winner, but I marked some other best answers that I thought sounded delicious. Thanks all!
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 12:25 PM on January 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Coming in to suggest no bake cheesecake (here's a good basic recipe)with the biscuits as the base.
posted by h00py at 6:31 AM on January 5, 2016


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