Black Forest Chocolate Cookies

Also, Chocolate Chip Cookies with Nutella, Brown Butter, and Sea Salt

I learned several things with this recipe.
1) Cookies aren't very photogenic. At least with my limited skills.
2) I don't love cookies that much. I don't know; I'm just not a big cookie person.

UNTIL NOW!

These are seriously amazing cookies. I like the idea of Black Forest cake, but the gross, slimy cherries and dry chocolate cake just never lived up to my expectations. But these cookies by Baked are a great combination of rich, not overly sweet chocolate, tart dried cherries, and a perfect sprinkling of dark, semi-sweet, and white chocolate chips. And get this: there is only 3/4 cup of flour! The rest of it is all butter, chocolate, and eggs!

The recipe said it would only make about 24 cookies, so I decided I'd try another (non-Baked) cookie recipe I'd found on Annie's Eats.

Nutella+Brown Butter+Sea Salt=Yummy

Both cookies are good...I think I'm going to have to say the Black Forest cookies win in my book. Also, the Black Forest cookies win in my book club. I took both cookies to book club, and more of the Black Forest were eaten. Everyone seemed to like both types, though.

My husband likes the Brown Butter/Nutella. So really, it's pretty much a toss-up.

Also, the "makes about 24 cookies" turned out to be a big, fat lie--it made like 64 cookies. So, I have a lot of cookies hanging out at my house. If you're in the area, come on over and have some!

Black Forest Chocolate Cookies (printable recipe)

3/4 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

16 oz. dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces

6 large eggs

1 1/4 c sugar

1 c firmly packed light brown sugar

1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

1 c (6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

1 c (6 oz.) white chocolate chips

1 c (6 oz.) dried cherries

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl and set aside.

2. In a large nonreactive metal bowl, combine the dark chocolate and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool. 

3. In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugars on the high speed until the mixture is pale and thick, about 5 minutes. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and the vanilla a beat until just combined. Scrape down the bowl and beat again for 10 seconds. 

4. Add the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined, about 10 seconds. Do not overmix.

5. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cherries. The dough will look very loose, but it will harden in the refrigerator. Refrigerate for 6 hours or overnight. 

6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

7. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until the tops of the cookies are set and begin to show a few cracks. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before removing from the pans and serving. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. 

Yield: About 4 dozen cookies

Recipe courtesy of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Copied with permission.

Millionaire's Shortbread

We invited some friends/family over for dinner this week, which made me choose dessert more carefully. This recipe didn't include a picture, and since I'm not particularly excited by shortbread, I didn't even give it a second thought last week. This time, I actually read through the ingredients.

Wait, chocolate?

Wait, dulce de leche??

It turns out, millionaires really do have it better than the rest of us.

UNTIL NOW*!

Today, the rest of us can have something usually reserved for millionaires! This is apparently a Scottish dessert, shortbread topped with a layer of caramel and a layer of chocolate. Baked also called these rich man's Twix. Whatever you want to call them, you will feel richer and happier.

They are a messy bar (crumbly, gooey, and melty all at once), but it is worth it. They are very rich, of course, so a small piece goes a long way. All of our guests liked them, so I think it was a hit. And they were even better the next day! How do they do that?

Millionaire's Shortbread (printable recipe)

Yield: 24 bars
Ingredients

• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 1/4 c (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 large egg yolk
• 28 oz. (2 14-oz. cans) sweetened condensed milk
• 6 oz. dark chocolate (60% cacao), coarsely chopped
• 1 tsp light corn syrup
• 1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9x13-in. baking pan.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar and butter together until blended. Add 2 cups of the flour and beat until well combined. Add the egg yolk and beat for a few seconds, or until just combined.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the top of the dough and your hands with a little flour. Use your hands to gently work the dough into a 6x6 square. You will have to turn the dough and sprinkle the top with flour as you go. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 c flour on the surface of the dough. Fold the dough over and knead until incorporated, then flatten the dough into a rectangle. Transfer the rectangle to the prepared pan and press it into the pan.
4. Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 22 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
5. To make the caramel filling, put the sweetened condensed milk in a large microwave-safe bowl. Cook on 50% power for 4 minutes, stirring briskly halfway through, until smooth. Cook on 30% power for 12 to 18 minutes, until very thick and caramel colored, stirring briskly every 2 minutes, until smooth.
6. Pour the caramel filling over the cooled shortbread and place the pan in the refrigerator until cool, about 2 hours.
7. To make the chocolate glaze, in a large nonreactive metal bowl, combine the chocolate, corn syrup, and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until the mixture is completely smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the chilled caramel layer and use and offset spatula to spread it into an even layer. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until the glaze hardens.
8. Remove the pan from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving so chocolate does not crack. Cut into squares and serve. Bars can be stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to 4 days.

Recipe by Recipe courtesy of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Copied with permission.
* Let's see if I can incorporate a big "UNTIL NOW!" into every post, shall we?

The Beginning

At the risk of sounding like I float through life directionless and without any semblance of a plan, I confess that I do a lot of things pretty randomly. I go to the library and choose random books I've never heard of (some are really good; many of them are bad). I've chosen pediatricians, dentists, OB/GYNs by choosing the most interesting names in the online directory. And I would never plan out meals; I'd just make whatever I felt like and happened to have the ingredients for that day.

UNTIL NOW!

I think being able to whip up something delicious from random ingredients is a useful skill, but it also means I'd be worrying all day about what to make. So lately I've been planning out our weekly meals, and it's pretty much awesome. I'm a little self-conscious about announcing this development, since there's a pretty good possibility it's a little like announcing, "Hey, I just found this great thing: it's called 'the internet'! You should try it!"
Anyway, I started realizing that the qualities that make me a decent, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook also make me a kind of terrible baker. Adaptability, substitutions, omissions, speed, throwing things in haphazardly without measuring...none of those really help in baking. In fact, they can ruin things.
But I would like to be a better baker. And I will need a map. Thus, the map for my quest:

How did I choose this book? Randomly.
I'd heard about it on various blogs and decided to go for it. That's it.
I will be making a recipe from this book every week until I've made every one (except the cocktails, unless I figure out a way to make them decent mocktails.) I will be analyzing my execution of the recipe and then sharing my personal assessment of it, but take what I say with a grain of salt; we'll all have different preferences. Due to copyright restrictions, I will not be posting the recipe, but if you really, really want it, you can contact me and I can probably share it with you. That's okay, right?

So, to kick things off, I randomly chose a recipe that wasn't too difficult so I can ease my way into things. Enter

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl

A yummy coffee cake. The texture was great and the crumb topping was delicious. It was over baked  which is my fault. I followed the directions carefully and everything, but my oven is lame, so the lower half is almost 25 degrees hotter than the upper half. I'll be more careful next time. The flavor was...good, not amazing. It was better the next day, though it's naturally not as moist after all that time. I'd been looking forward to the chocolate cinnamon swirl, but it pretty much got lost in everything else. And I even busted out the fancy, high-end cocoa powder I bought for it! I'm thinking maybe next time I'll put just one layer of it in the middle so it's not diluted into two layer, or just double the swirl stuff. 

Final assessment: it's worth making again, but it's not something that'll get huge raves. 

And, if you're interested, I just found out you can get a pre-packaged mix for this recipe at your local Williams-Sonoma! One of these I'll buy one and give you a comparison.


--Ami