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Showing posts with label cookie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cookie. Show all posts

Monday, January 18, 2010

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies & A Rant

I live with a potato sack who, not only does not appreciate sweets and desserts, but hassles me to sleep....at 9:40PM! Not only is said person messing with my creative genius but he doesn't even enjoy the goodies I make. I bet Einstein's wife never hassled him to go to bed when he was working on his theory of relativity! Luckily for me, there are plenty of other victims...er...I mean volunteers who are willing to play guinea pig for the things I make. And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

I got this recipe from TS and JS of Eating Club Vancouver. It's a Martha Stewart recipe (my hero!except for the whole prison thing...) and it was super easy to make. I used a milk chocolate ganache and a raspberry chocolate ganache to fill the thumbprints and I have to admit, I am an absolute genius (I didn't create the theory of relativity but isn't delicious food just as important?!)! The raspberry chocolate ganache was absolutely divine! Smooth, creamy, sweet but not overwhelmingly so, with the dreaminess of raspberry that just skims the palette. I don't even like chocolate and I was tempted to eat the whole bowl of raspberry ganache with a spoon. I had some left over after filling the thumbprints and I'll use it to make raspberry chocolate truffles. And I know who won't be getting any either ;)! The recipe says it makes 70. I got about 60 out of the batch using a tablespoon but you can make them smaller or larger as you please.




Chocolate Thumbprints from Martha Stewart Living magazine
Makes 70

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons coarse salt (like kosher)
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar, plus more for rolling
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350◦ Sift flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a small bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium, and add yolks, cream and vanilla. Scrape sides of bowl. Beat in flour mixture until just combined.
2. Roll balls using 2 teaspoons dough for each, and roll each in sugar. Place 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. With the handle of a wooden spoon, press gently in the center of each to create an indentation. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are set, about 10 minutes. (If indentations lose definition, press centers again.) Let cool slightly on baking sheets. Transfer cookies on wire racks, and let cool.
3. Spoon warm ganache into center of each cookie. Let stand until firm, about 15 minutes. Cookies will keep, covered, for up to 3 days.

Raspberry Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients
4oz milk chocolate, chopped into small pieces
175ml heavy cream
1-3 tablespoons raspberry jam

Directions
1. Heat cream in a small pot until boiling.
2. Add cream to chocolate and let sit for 1 minute.
3. Gently stir chocolate and cream mixture until well mixed. The consistency should be smooth and not too thick.
4. Add raspberry jam to taste. I used 3 tablespoons because I wanted a strong raspberry flavour, but you can add 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach the right flavour.
5. Spoon into thumbprint. If you find it a little bit too runny, you can refrigerate for 30 minutes until it thickens and then spoon our pipe ganache into cookies.

For the chocolate ganache, do the same as above but omit raspberry jam.


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Homemade Oreo Cookies

I stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen's website a few months ago when I was looking for a recipe for red velvet cake. The red velvet cake was delicious and I constantly went back to Smitten Kitchen's website and I'm a big fan. Her recipes practically beg to be made and I've bookmarked quite a number of things to bake. If you haven't visited her website, then you should definitely take a minute and check it out because it is a gold mine of delicious looking food! I made some changes to her recipe because I didn't have some of the things on hand. I've posted the recipe with the changes that I've made but if you want to see the original, head on over to her site. I made these with a rounded tablespoon and flattened each circle to 1/2" thickness so that they were about the same thickness as a regular Oreo cookie. Since mine were quite small and thin, I only baked them for about 5 minutes in my oven to retain a soft and slightly chewy center but if you'd like something crispier, more like real Oreo's, then bake for about 7 minutes. I saved myself one and took the rest to work and everyone said they were delicious and even better than real Oreo cookies!


Chewy, soft and moist with a creamy and sweet filling.


Homemade Oreos adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients
For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/2 cup (1 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 - 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In a mixing bowl, using beaters, thoroughly beat the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. On low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass and can be formed into a dough.
3. Take rounded tablespoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, flatten the dough to 1/2" thickness. Bake for 5-7 minutes, depending on how crispy you would like your cookies to be. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, beat in the sugar and vanilla, adding 1/2 cup of icing sugar at a time, periodically tasting the cream until you reach the desired sweetness. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. You can also use a teaspoon or an offset spatula to cover one cookie with cream and then cover with the second cookie. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.