If you're new here, subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates direct to your Feedreader. Thanks for visiting! 
I go through cookie phases. I don’t make them for months at a stretch, but when I do, I can’t seem to stop.
With cookies showing up all over the blogosphere this season, I got sucked into the madness as well. First, it was the walnut-rosemary that sat in a cookie tin on my desk. And now, these chocolate stuffed cookies.
It’s a simple cookie dough that you roll out and then stuff with really good chocolate. Stuff them well. Stuff them so that the cookie dough barely encloses it. And then bake them. A good 9-10 minutes later you’ll have warm, cookies oozing with melted chocolate.
Have them warm, pinching them a bit so that the chocolate squirts out. It’s fun.
What’s your current favorite cookie recipe?
Chocolate Stuffed Cookies
Makes 20 cookies
Ingredients:
75g butter
75g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
120g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp milk (or just enough to moisten the dough a bit)
Chocolate callets or chopped chocolate for stuffing the cookies
Equipment: Silicone mat (USA | UK)
- Preheat the oven to 170C/350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
- In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Add the vanilla extract followed by the egg yolk and continue to beat until light ad fluffy.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa before folding into the butter mixture.
- The dough will be dry and crumbly – it’s supposed to be this way. Add a tablespoon or so of water if you think it’s absolutely necessary.. else wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Next, roll out the dough and then cut out circles of diameter 1.5 inches. Place the chocolate (as much as you can fit) and gather together the sides to enclose the chocolate.
- Place on the cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes.
- Remove on a cooling rack… eat up. Great dunked in cold milk as well.
These golden hued disks of sliced almonds are crisp, shiny and supremely addictive.
What’s a Florentine you ask? It’s an Italian cookie that gets its name from where it originated, Florence, and is generally made with almonds and hazelnuts (the most abundantly used nuts in the region). Dried and candied fruits are also added sometimes. Traditional Florentines are painted with chocolate at the bottom – making it such a pleasant surprise.
These almond Florentines are a breeze to make. It literally takes less than 2 minutes to put the ingredients together and then it sits into the oven for 8-10 minutes to transform into toasted, crunchy cookies.
Word of caution: these weren’t easy to take off the magical silicone baking mat (shocking), so I’m pretty sure when you’re using parchment or greaseproof paper, they are going to be rather unforgiving. Make sure to brush the baking mat or parchment with a little oil to make things easier.
As soon as I took a bite, I wished I’d added a pinch of cinnamon. And then maybe some pieces of candied oranges. A perfect marriage of heavenly flavours.
They’re light and delicate, perfect with a cup of coffee. Crush them over a bowl of ice cream or caramelised apples or banana manna.
This recipe for almond Florentines is inspired from The Ottolenghi Cookbook (USA | UK | India)
Almond Florentines
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites
- 140g icing sugar
- 9 oz/ 260g flaked almonds
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 150°C/290°F. Line a baking tray with either parchment or silicione baking mat.
- In a bowl, mix together the egg whites and icing sugar. Stir in the flaked almonds.
- Spoon the almond blobs on the baking sheet, flattening it with the spoon as you go.
- Bake for 6-8 minutes until they’re golden brown.
- Let it cool on the baking sheet for a bit. Then use a palette knife to remove the biscuits from the sheet. Eat up or store in a jar for upto 4 days.
Chocolate chip cookies are the kind of snack you should always have around the house. It makes people happy. And more so, when you dot them with chocolate chips right before baking.
When I discovered the thrills of baking, chocolate chip cookies were amongst the first things I tried. And I tried a lot of them. Let’s just say that they were versatile in their functions ranging from being a frisbee substitute to bird food.
The chocolate chip recipe I used in the past is lovely and wonderfully crispy around the edges, but a tad greasy. While the NYTimes one’s just way too frou frou: I want a cookie, and I want it right now. I’m really not going to wait for my cookie dough to rest in the refrigerator for a day (or three!). Just to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything, I tried the recipe, and I think I’m okay with sticking to simpler recipes like this one. Although, I do enjoy the tip from NYT about sprinkling some sea salt on the cookie right before baking. It pleasantly cuts the sweetness.
This chocolate chip cookie recipe is the famous Nestle Toll House cookie recipe that came with a strong endorsement from a friend. And when I looked up the ingredients, it turned out to be very similar to the chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve been using; difference being that I used baking powder instead of baking soda and made tiny variations in measurements.
Chocolate chip cookie tips:
- Refrigerate the cookie dough for 20 minutes if you don’t want a cookie that spreads out too much.
- Chocolate chips are engineered to stay firm despite the oven heat. Use feves/callets of dark chocolate instead if the tiny choco chips for chocolate that oozes in your mouth.
- Cookie structure: For a rustic, irregular look (like the kind in the photo), scoop the dough on the baking sheet with an ice cream scoop, or two spoons. For more uniform cookies, roll it into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. Flatten it a little with two fingers.
- This recipe works beautifully even when halved.
Chococolate Chip Cookie
Yield: 4 dozen
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ / 270g cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup / 200g butter (add a tsp of salt to the flour if using unsalted butter)
- 3/4th cup / 150g caster sugar
- 3/4th cup / 150g brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups / 350g chocolate chips
Cooking Directions
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
- Beat butter, both the sugars and vanilla in large mixer bowl.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
- Stir in flour mixture, followed by most of the chocolate chips.
- Drop the cookie dough on a baking sheet, leave an inch’s space between cookies. Dot with remaining chocolate chips
- Bake in preheated 175°C/350°F oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
- Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
I’m not a huge cookie person. I do make them on and off, but that’s mostly to feed others. Especially the ever popular Nutella cookies. I have made them so many times, I’m pretty sure I could make them in my sleep.
But this past week, I think I’ve found a cookie that’s going to stand up against the Nutella cookie. It’s a brownie cookie. A cross between a cookie and brownie, that highlights the best of both worlds. Soft and rich like a brownie. Crumbly like a cookie. Genius, right?
I set out to make these cookies simply because I needed something high on cacao to satiate my chocolate craving. It’s a recipe from Tartine, and it’s nothing short of perfection. If you’re feeling a little over indulgent, then throw in a handful of chocolate chips. And since we’re on our way to making cookies into comfort food, you could curl up in bed with some warm cookies and a glass of cold milk. We’ll just pretend we don’t know where the crumbs on the bed came from.
Here’s a word of advice from the chefs at Tartine: Because these cookies are so rich in chocolate, it’s important to use your favourite high-quality brand.
Brownie Cookie Recipe
Adapted from: Tartine (USA | UK | India)
Brownie Cookie Recipe
5.0
Yield: 40 cookies
Ingredients
- 8oz/ 225g dark chocolate
- 5.5oz/ 155g/ 1cup+1tbsp flour
- 1.75oz/ 50g/ 1/2cup+2tbsp cocoa
- 2tsp/ 10g baking powder
- 4oz/112g/ 1/2 cup butter
- 8oz/ 225g/ 1cup+2tbsp caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1tsp / 5ml vanilla extract
- 2.5oz/75ml/ 1/3rd cup milk (preferably whole)
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C. Line a baking pan with Silpat.
- Put the chocolate in a bowl and place the bowl in a pan of simmering water for the chocolate to melt. Set aside.
- Stir together the flour, cocoa, baking powder. Set aside.
- In a large bowl beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar gradually until thoroughly dissolved. Next, add the eggs, one at a time. Then beat in the vanilla and melted chocolate until well incorporated.
- Add the milk, making sure to do so gradually to away splattering.
- Finally, fold in the flour mixture (or mix on a low speed) until no traces of dry ingredients can be spotted.
- Drop by tablespoonfuls on the baking sheet, leaving a gap of 1 inch between cookie dough.
- Bake for 7 minutes. Then let them continue to rest on the baking sheet, because they are still very delicate to transfer to the cooling rack. Once they are firmer, transfer to the cooling rack.
- Store in an airtight container.
December has got to be the best month for a food blogger, with the season being perfect for rich breads, lots of cookies and elaborate meals. And that makes me feel really bad because I haven’t done justice to the month.
While the weather in Bombay has been nothing but charming, and perfectly conducive for indulging in all sorts of winter-y pleasures (I even had to shut the windows one night!), I haven’t quite got the chance to sit back and enjoy the season and join in the merriment. With the bake sale, assignment deadlines and some very fun things in the works, baking new things took a back seat. A pity, I know.
My recipe file with ideas for blog posts to share with you is bursting at the seams, and I cannot wait to share all those things with you. Today, I’m sharing with you the recipe of the lavender shortbread I made for the bake sale. While the recipe is based on the lavender shortbread I made a long time ago, I tweaked it just a bit to showcase the buttery-ness of the cookie, as well as added a tad more lavender (yes, because it’s Christmas!). It’s my current favoruite snack and I’ve made it twice since the bake sale already because it’s not overtly sweet and I have tonnes of lavender in my pantry.
Buttery Lavender Shortbread
Yeild: 24 cookies
Note: It’s imperative that you rub the sugar and lavender together for the fragrance of the lavender to shine through. Also, if you’re using unsalted butter, I’d encourage you to add ½ tsp of salt (stir it in with the flour)– it gives it such a well rounded flavour.
100g vanilla sugar (ground till fine)
2 tsp lavender
200g butter
300g flour
More butter for brushing the top of the cookie
Equipment: A rectangular tart pan (12 x 8 inches)
- Preheat oven to 325F/170C.
- Rub the vanilla sugar with the lavender until it’s fragrant. To give it a citrus-y flavour you could even add in some lime zest at this point.
- In a bowl mix the butter and sugar until light and slightly fluffy.
- Fold in the flour until evenly mixed.
- Transfer to the tart pan and press the dough down to an even layer.
- Brush the top with melted butter.
- With a knife, cut the dough into 24 pieces, and then pierce the pieces with a fork (so the cookie doesn’t fluff up).
- Bake for 25 minutes or until slightly golden.
- Cut pieces when it’s still warm along the lines that were made earlier.
- Transfer to a rack to cool. Eat up.
