Jean's Chewy Maple Cookies

Left side, cut with pizza cutter! Right side, recipe working much better.

My good friend Jean shared her recipe yesterday for Chewy Maple Cookies -- yumm! Baking them today, I used the "very strong dark" maple syrup that Goodrich's Maple Farm in Cabot, Vermont, provides for cooks. I also tried substituting whole wheat flour for part of the white flour in the original recipe -- not a success at first, as the whole wheat flour didn't absorb the liquid, and the cookies spread into a sheet of cooked dough on the (parchment-lined) pan. A few quick strokes with the pizza cutter turned things back into snack form, but I still wanted the cookie shape, so with the other half of the dough I raised the amount of flour.

Here's my final "revised" version -- and Jean, thank you very much!

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Stir together:
1-1/2 (one and one half) cups unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (I put the regular chopped ones in a small plastic bag and run the rolling pin over them a couple of times to make them finer)

In a large bowl, beat with hand mixer:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup dark maple syrup (if you can't get dark, use light but add Jean's extra ingredient: 1/2 tsp maple flavoring)

Stir in dry ingredients. Drop dough by generous teaspoonfuls onto parchment-lined or greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.