A sugar cookie with spices you usually put in pasta sauce (and it actually works very well)

This unusual and fantastic cookie was inspired completely by Susan Bradley’s recipe at The Luna Cafe. She specializes in cookies and has a number of cookie cookbooks that we probably all need to buy. Her creativity is inspiring.

This particular recipe is surprising not only in its use of rosemary and black pepper as seasoning, but in the corn flour as part of the grain.

Susan’s original recipe uses all purpose flour and all butter for a more traditional short bread cookie. We tried her version and it is absolutely divine. It may be a good place for you to start as well. From there we found some bravery and used fresh ground spelt flour instead of the all-purpose flour making the cookie whole grain. We used rapadura sugar, a sugar with its molasses still attached, packing a little more nutrition. We substituted 1/3 of the butter in the original recipe for extra virgin olive oil, moving further away from the original short bread concept. Because of the olive oil, we added an extra bit of sugar. The end result was fantastic as well, more wafer-like than short bread but equally memorable.

Rosemary & Black Pepper Sugar Cookie Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups fresh ground spelt flour
• 1 cup fine corn flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/3 cups rapadura sugar (powdered in a blender)
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, finely minced
• 2 teaspoons Rapadura, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper mixture for finishing

Rosemary & Black Pepper Sugar Cookie Steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Finely mince your fresh rosemary.
3. If you are using a grainy sugar like rapadura, turn it into a powder in your blender so that it integrates into the cookie dough better.
4. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl: spelt flour, corn flour, sea salt, and black pepper.
5. Mix softened butter in mixer until fluffy. Add olive oil, sugar, almond extract, and fresh rosemary.
6. Add dry ingredients to mixer. Blend on a low-medium speed just until the dough has formed.
7. Grease cookie sheets with butter.
8. Form dough into small balls, about 3/4 inch in diameter. Place on cookie sheet a couple of inches apart.
9. Make a “sugar pepper” mixture with about 4 parts sugar and 1 part pepper to finish the top of the cookies.
10. Press down lightly on each cookie ball with a flat surface. (We used the bottom of a jar). Your flattening tool may get sticky — dip it into your sugar and pepper mixture between each cookie.
11. You may want to sprinkle more of the sugar and pepper mixture on your cookies before baking.
12. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about fifteen minutes. Rotate your cookie sheet halfway through for even cooking.
13. If these cookies fully brown, they will get extra “crispy.” For a softer cookie, catch them as they are beginning to brown.
14. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool. Once cool, remove them gently from the cookie sheet with a spatula.