cookie swap

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Homemade cookies.  Few gifts are as thoughtful or as delicious, and nothing is as much fun to create. 

The holidays are when we make those extra efforts-large and small to bring out the best.
  
When it comes to baking and entertaining we turn to traditional and favorite recipes, made with the very finest ingredients.  Pure and intense, fresh and flavorful, these key ingredients are what make our efforts a delicious success in the kitchen.
  
This recipe is a home run for chocolate lovers, only the best Double-Dutch Cocoa (such a Perngotti or Valrhona) plus the addition of espresso powder makes this cookie a rich indulgence. 

Join in with us on our holiday cookie swap.  Share your favorite family holiday cookie recipe, post a picture or a link so we can all enjoy something new and tasty!

So here it is, one of my favorite chocolate cookie recipes. Talk about in your face, these Double-Dark Chocolate Mocha Drops are spiked with espresso, and loaded with chips. Let’s go!

Enjoy!

Shannon

  

Double-Dark Mocha Drops

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon espresso powder

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa or Dutch-process cocoa

1 1/4 cups All purpose flour

2 cups chips: cappuccino, cinnamon, chocolate, or a mixture

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets, or line with parchment.

Combine the melted butter, sugars, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder in a mixing bowl.

Beat until the mixture is smooth.

Add the egg and vanilla, and again beat until thoroughly combined. The mixture will look a bit grainy; that's OK.  Beat in the cocoa. Add the flour, beating slowly to combine. Add the chips, mixing until they're well-distributed.

Drop the dough by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets. A teaspoon scoop works very well here. If the dough begins to stick, simply dip the scoop in cold water. Space the cookies at least 1" apart.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes; the cookies should seem barely done. If you attempt to pick an oven-hot cookie off the baking sheet, it'll fall apart.  Allow the cookies to cool right on the baking sheet.

makes about 4 dozen

kicked-up gingerbread

When I was going through Jamie Oliver’s cookbook Cook with Jamie, I came across a recipe for what he calls the “Ultimate Gingerbread”. He said that the when he was visiting Grasmere, in England’s Lake District he stopped into a shop that had the best gingerbread he’d ever eaten. He says that they use a secret recipe which is about 150 years old and, of course, they wouldn’t give the recipe to him. So he decided to have a go at it on his own. The result…it is probably some of the best gingerbread you’ll ever eat! The recipe calls for not only ground ginger but also crystallized ginger as well as some candied citrus peel. These additions give this unusual gingerbread a spicy-citrus kick that is tasty as a cookie, but also works pretty fine sprinkled over ice cream or even used as a cheesecake base.

His recipe also calls for golden syrup (an English export called Lyles), which amazingly I did find at a little gourmet shop in town. But if you cannot find golden syrup a mixture of 2 parts light corn syrup to 1 part molasses will do the trick.

So if you want to add a little something different into your baking plans this holiday, give this one a try.

Enjoy!

Shannon

Ultimate gingerbread
Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s cookbook Cook with Jamie

14 oz. store bought shortbread or homemade
6 oz. raw sugar
2 tsp. ground ginger
1/3 cup mixed candied citrus peel, chopped
1/3 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
7 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
A pinch of baking powder
2 Tbsp. golden syrup
2 Tbsp. molasses
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 325°F and find a baking pan about 8x14 inches. Put the shortbread, sugar, and 2 teaspoons of the ground ginger in a food processor and whiz until you have crumbs. Remove 3 ½ oz. of the mix and keep this to one side. Add the remaining teaspoon of ginger to the processor, along with the mixed peel, crystallized ginger, flour and baking powder, and pulse until well mixed.

Melt the syrup, molasses and butter together in a saucepan big enough to hold all the ingredients. When melted, add the mixture from the food processor and stir with a wooden spoon until everything is thoroughly mixed together. Tip into the baking pan and spread out evenly. Press the mixture down into the tray, using your fingers or something flat and clean like a potato masher or spatula. When the mix is a flat, dense even layer, pop the tray into the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Take the tray out of the oven and sprinkle the hot gingerbread with the reserved crumbs, pressing them down really well with the potato masher or spatula. Carefully cut into good-sized pieces with a sharp knife, and leave to cool in the pan before eating.

whack!

Well it hit me…inspiration that is. Those purple, egg shaped wrinkly (and getting more wrinkled by the day) passion fruit have been waiting for me to get inspired so that I could incorporate them into something sublime.

Thankfully, I stumbled across this recipe from an Australian publication that I get online. When I came upon the recipe for Passion fruit yo-yos with white chocolate and passion fruit ganache I knew that was it. Heck, who doesn’t want to eat something called a yo-yo, especially when it’s a cookie? The recipe is from a very talented Australian food stylist Emma Knowles. I had to fiddle with the measurements a bit, since they are in grams, but I think I got them pretty close (thanks to gourmet sleuth)

The sweet, tart flavor that comes from the passion fruit puree and white chocolate together is heaven. The cookie itself almost melts in your mouth, since it uses both flour and cornstarch as the base along with quite a bit of butter.

So head on out to your farmers’ market and get those passion fruit while their still here, and see what inspiration might hit you with these little beauties.

Enjoy!
Shannon



Passion fruit yo-yos with white chocolate and passion fruit ganache
Recipe adapted from Emma Knowles

Ingredients
yo-yos
12 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup passion fruit puree (see note)
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup cornstarch
White chocolate and passion fruit ganache
¾ cup heavy cream
¼ cup passion fruit puree (see note)
2 pieces lemon rind, removed with a peeler (avoid the white pith)
6 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

1. For ganache, combine cream, juice and rind in a saucepan and bring just to the boil over medium-high heat. Place chocolate in a bowl, strain over hot cream mixture, whisk until smooth and refrigerate for 4 hours or until thick.

2. Beat butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, add juice and combine. Add flour and cornstarch and mix until just combined, then turn onto a floured surface, form into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

3. Preheat over to 350°F. Roll out pastry to ¼ inch thick and using a 1 ½ inch diameter cutter, cut rounds from pastry and place on parchment paper lined oven trays. Press scraps into a ball, re-roll and repeat. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just golden, cool on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

4. Spread half of the biscuits with a teaspoon each of ganache, sandwich with remaining biscuits and stand until set. Yo-yos will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container or up to a month in the freezer.

Note To make passion fruit puree, blend passion fruit pulp in a food processor to crack seeds, and then strain through a fine sieve. Twelve passion fruit yield about 1 cup of juice.

Makes 24

size matters

Call it a Napoleon complex or maybe just an excuse to eat a really large cookie, but super-size cookies seem to be a 21st century rage, and I am all for it! Setting aside the "wow" factor on these six-inch behemoths, there is plenty of justification for sitting down with a large glass of milk and savoring one.

Made from nothing more than flour, eggs, sugar, leavening agents, salt and chocolate, the cookie seems idiot-proof. After all, it's simple enough that an eighth-grader can make it, right?

Not necessarily.

If it was just a matter of a recipe than there would be many a baker who would be out of business. It's what goes into the making of the cookie that makes the difference. Like the omelet, which many believe to be the true test of a chef, the humble chocolate chip cookie is the baker's crucible.

Besides the ingredients that go into the cookie, one common thread among the top baker's is that they let the dough rest in the refrigerator. What they are doing is ingenious. They are allowing the dough and other ingredients to fully soak up the liquid-in this case the eggs-in order to get a drier and firmer dough, which bakes to a better consistency. A long hydration time is important because the eggs, unlike say, water are gelatinous and slow moving. The result is that the cookies brown more evenly and the flavor deepens with more bass notes of caramel and hints of toffee.

The second insight has to do with the size. The larger size allows for three distinct textures; the crunchy outside, the soft gooey center and the magical space in between where the two textures and all the flavors mix.

Of course what would a chocolate chip cookie be without the wallop of good chocolate? My chocolate of choice is Valrhona Equatorial 55%. These "Les Fèves" or discs are flat and melt superbly. By using this chocolate you achieve something that melts beautifully. Break apart one of these cookies and a curious thing happens, inside aren't chunks of chocolate, but rather a thin dark stratum, the result of which is layers of chocolate and cookie in every bite.

Although it doesn't seem possible to take this Cookie to the next level, leave it to Dorie Greenspan the author of "Paris Sweets" to do so. She suggests that salt, specifically Fleur de sel (sea salt) in the dough and also sprinkled on top adds a dimension that can lift even a common cookie to glory.

I agree.

The recipe below is an adaptation of a Jacques Torres recipe. I think it is a hands down winner.

Do you doubt it? Well, there's only one way to find out.

Enjoy!

Shannon




Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups minus 2 Tbsp. (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. Fleur de sel or kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
12 ounces Valrhona fèves, oval shaped chocolate pieces (found at Whole Foods)
Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
Using a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
Scoop 6- 3 1/2 ounces mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with the Fleur de sel and bake until golden brown but still soft, 10 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Happy Birthday Julia!

Today, August 15th would have been Julia Child's 97th birthday. The contributions that she brought to cooking in America are so vast that they cannot be contained within this post. In fact, with the release of the movie Julie & Julia, and the new found, soaring popularity of her cookbooks, there doesn't seem to be a space large enough to talk about her.

I would like to think that Julia Child would love the resurgence in her cookbooks and in making wonderful meals at home. I know that as soon as I came home from seeing the movie, I grabbed my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and found the recipe for her Boeuf Bourgignon, vowing to make it the first chance I get.

So in honor of Julia, I thought it would be appropriate to make a little something special. What better way than to make Madeleine's. That delicious soft French scallop shaped cookie, that according to Marcel Proust in his literary masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past "launched a thousand memories."

Although there are only a few ingredients, it is the execution of this particular recipe that makes it a little more unique than some others I've come across. This recipe requires the whipping of the eggs and sugar until it doubles in volume, is nearly white and when the beater is lifted a thick ribbon is formed. Also, take care when folding the dry ingredients into the egg mixture as to not deflate.

These cookies are light with a delicate crumb. Traditionally they should be served with tea. But as for me, I will enjoy mine with a latte!




Bon Appétit
Shannon


P.S.
I have listed out Julia Child's books and DVD's on the Stuff I like on Amazon link. It is under "Everything Julia".




Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
3 large eggs, room temp.
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract




Melt butter and allow to cool while you make the batter.
In a small bowl place the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk until well blended.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar at medium-high speed until the mixture has tripled in volume and forms a thick ribbon when the beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and beat to combine.

Sift a small amount of flour over the egg mixture and, using a large rubber spatula, fold the flour mixture into the beaten eggs to lighten it. Sift the rest of the flour over the egg mixture and fold in being sure not to over mix or the batter will deflate.

Whisk a small amount of the egg mixture into the melted butter, then fold in the cooled melted butter in three additions. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or several hours, until slightly firm.

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375°F. Generously butter two 12-mold Madeleine pans (I like the non-stick type). Dust the molds with flour and shake out excess. Make sure the pans are well greased or the Madeleine's will stick and be hard to remove.

Drop a generous tablespoonful of the batter into the center of each prepared mold, leaving the batter mounded in the center. This will result in the classic "humped" appearance of the Madeleine's.

Bake the Madeleine's for 11-13 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the centers spring back when lightly touched. Do not over bake these cookies or they will be dry.

Remove the pans from the oven and twist the pan to release the Madeleine's. Transfer cookies, smooth side down to wire racks to cool. The Madeleine's are best served the same day but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 to 3 days or frozen, well wrapped for up to 1 month.

Note: If you make the miniature Madeleine's, reduce the baking time to about 7-9 minutes.

Yield: 24 3-inch cookies