Chocolate Crackles

So it's been a busy summer. I've been out of town quite a bit over the weekend, hence the lack of cookie posts. For updates on that, you can go to my other blog (yes I'm a blogging fiend...http://jesshoma.wordpress.com/.

This was nice way to break back into baking season. Although the dough needed to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours (which was fine since I had to do a 10 mile run that day anyway- marathon training- again: http://jesshoma.wordpress.com/), the actual mixing didn't take that long, and the baking was quick. I guess the most time consuming part was the sugar rolling. So here we go...

Mix the Dry:

Melt a bunch of chopped bittersweet baking chocolate and melt with some butter before beginning to mix. Look closely and you might even see a little Pepper in the background (not of the flavor palate, but of the photo)

After you mix the chocolate with the dry goods, some milk, an egg, some vanilla and cocoa powder it sits in the fridge to firm up.

Next you roll 1 diameter balls, coat in granulated sugar first, then confectioners. And into the oven:

After 15 minutes at 350- they're cracked and gorgeous! Tell me that's not a perfect Christmas cookie! Too bad it's only September, but I'm ready for the holidays (I'm even mostly done present shopping! ::ducking tomatoes::).

Sand Dollars

So appropriate. I'm not sure what happened around here, but I know 95 degrees is not a normal temperature for the DC metro area in late April. It was a scorcher. Yeah, I got a little burned, but what are you going to do. Met the fam at Maryland Day, but I needed some supplemental gift cookies for Dad, so I finished these off before we left the house.

Stop me if you've heard this before.

Cream butter and sugar.

Add in your flavorings- lemon zest and vanilla this time, along with eggs.

Add in some flour and let it rest in the fridge before you cut out 3 in. rounds. I don't have many cookie cutters, so my glasses have to do.

After they're on the cookie sheet- brush with egg white, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and place almonds thusly (sanddollarly).



Bake and enjoy. As a side note I brought them to meet Dad and we got a burrito at Chipotle. A few people in line asked if they could try one and since dad didn't mind, I passed some around. I'm not a huge huge fan, but the Chipotle clientèle must have an affinity for desserts that resemble seashells. ;)

Chocolate Malt Sandwhiches

Two in the same night- it was a long one!

These bad boys I made to accompany some cherry ice cream (also for blossom festivities). They're a chocolate cookie sandwich with a cream cheese frosting filling.

I ended up halving this recipe, and I still ended up with a ton of cookies. I made about 16 sandwiches, so 32 cookies, with half the batter.

I love cream cheese frosting, so these were right up my ally. I caution those of you with husbands that are less than enthusiastic about cream cheese to temper your expectations, and prepare to consume yourself or share with fam and office mates.. ;)

Cherry Tuiles

The cherry blossoms are out in DC, and so these are seasonally inspired. They are very similar to the honey florentines- so obviously, I love them!

Instead of the honey, these are made with corn syrup and cherries. Same process, but the baking time, and final shape are a bit different.

The cherries need to be re-hydrated a bit, in warm water, then mixed in with the batter. After chilling for about an hour, I shaped and baked the dough.



When they came out of the over, I draped them over my cookie dough scoop- it was the only cooking utensil i had that had the recommended circumference.

Crispy and delicious!

Pistachio Lemon Wafers

Maybe it's my affinity for lemon flavor, but I thought these were excellent. I'm finding, with each recipe, baking cookies is not nearly as difficult or time consuming as I initially thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very intricate recipes with multiple layers, that are technically challenging, but just as many are fairly easy and quick- including this one.

Only levener was a whipped egg white with salt. Whip to stiff peaks:

Then add in chopped pistachios (finely chopped) and brown sugar, a little flour and lemon juice.

Spoon a couple of inches apart on baking sheet and in the cooker for 10 min.

At first i was nervous, because I hardly "finely chopped" the pistachios. For the significant lack of chopping, the cookies were surprisingly well balanced, they weren't that chunky. The lemon flavor, like I said, really made it for me- nice after dinner cookie.

Grammy's Chocolate Cookie

I don't remember my Grammy making anything like this, but I guess Martha's did. Super easy- or maybe I'm just slowly getting better at this. The only thing that took some extra time was the chilling.

I started with a cream of sugar, butter, vanilla and egg- then mixed in chocolate, flour and some other dry ingredients:

I love the look of this dough- so dark it's almost black. You know there's plenty of chocolate in there...I had to rest it in the fridge in some plastic wrap, but I had a bite to taste before I put it to bed. Mmmm, chocolate flavored sugar butter...sooo good. Sorry, this photo's not so appetizing- but just wait- I'll make it up to you.

Once the slab was chilled, enough, I made 1.25 inch balls of dough, rolled in turbinado sugar- subbed for sanding sugar.



They baked up perfectly. This is the first recipe that really came out the way the book pictured, so I was very pleased! I topped a bowl of ice cream with one that was fresh out of the oven and gave it to Scott for dessert. He was not disappointed.

Chocolate Meringues

Only a few ingredients, but a big time investment. These could be made plain, but I added dutch cocoa to choc them up.

This recipe starts with a technique that I've only used to melt chocolate before. I steam heated the egg white, sugar and a little cream of tartar and vanilla over simmering water.

After stirring constantly until it's warmed up and sugar's dissolved, I whipped in the mixer- to stiff peaks, then fold in sifter cocoa powder.



This doesn't sound like a lot of work, but both steps take 10 minutes or so, and then you have to get all of this sticky goo into a piping bag.



Next time I think I'll use my normal parchment piping cone, but since I just bought a piping bag set at Tuesday Morning, I wanted to try it out. It was a big fat mess, then I had to wash it all out afterwards, and couldn't get all the cocoa stains out.

After all the piping, they just go into the over at 175 for 2 hours. Wait 2 hours??? I should have read that part before I started them at 8:30.

2 hours later we had about 3 dozen cute little meringues. I had Scott test one before I brought them into work- I'm not looking forward to his blog post, but hopefully, others will be more accepting of the egg white concoction :)