Greetings! How is your summer going? Initially, I was going to wait until Fall to post these, just because these cookies give me sort of an Autumnal vibe, but I’m not sure why. But I figured I might as well write this up and share it, otherwise, I might forget what recipe I ended up using!

The recipe morphed from being just about black garlic, to now including black pepper and black olives. And I know that for some people, it’s very difficult to think of them as sweet. But honestly, the more I made different batches of these, some flat and some extremely flat, and some that are more of a combination of flat but still somewhat chewy, like these, the more I began to only see these as sweet cookies. And that’s because the company that sells the black garlic I purchased really ferments them for a long time, and that mellows them out quite a bit. And black olives to me are very sweet and fruity, anyway. And black pepper is also found in German cookies, so I figured I could throw some black pepper into the mix to add interest. Et voilà!

triple black cookies (based loosely on THIS recipe, makes about 2 dozen cookies) 

ingredients

2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 eggs, room temperature

1/4 cup milk, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

6 ounces medium black olives, sliced 

About 12 cloves of black garlic, each clove sliced into 6 pieces. Use more if desired.

method

Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and black pepper into a bowl and set aside.

Combine the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract together in a bowl and whisk or beat briefly to combine.

Cream the softened butter with the sugars in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for a few minutes. Gradually increase the speed to medium and let mix until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. 

Turn off mixer. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixer bowl and turn the speed back on to medium-low and gradually add the egg mixture in a slow steady stream to ensure that it is incorporated into the dough. Turn up the speed to medium-high and beat for about a minute.

Turn the speed back to low and slowly add flour mixture until all the flour is moistened. Remove bowl from the stand mixer and fold in the olives. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl again.

With a tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop, use two level scoops of dough and press together to form into one ball of dough and randomly place about 3 pieces of black garlic per cookie. Sprinkle each cookie with a little freshly ground black pepper. Press down each ball of cookie dough slightly into a disc. 

Place each cookie in a tray or plate and refrigerate all the cookie discs for at least an hour before baking.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper and heat oven to 375 degrees F. 

When cookies have been in the fridge for at least an hour and you are ready to start baking, place about 6 cookie discs spread apart per baking sheet and bake for about 13-16 minutes until cookies are golden brown. You can bake 6 cookies at a time using just one baking sheet for more even baking, thus avoiding the need to rotate baking sheets at half-time.

When cookies are ready to come out, remove from oven and let the baking sheet sit on a wire rack for a few minutes before transferring cookies directly to a wire rack. Cookies will be too soft to transfer right out of the oven but will firm up as it cools.

Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container for a few days at most.