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chocolate

Chocolate Chip Cookies

April 5, 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookie

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

  1. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
  2. Beat butter, both the sugars and vanilla in large mixer bowl.
  3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
  4. Stir in flour mixture, followed by most of the chocolate chips.
  5. Drop the cookie dough on a baking sheet, leave an inch’s space between cookies. Dot with remaining chocolate chips
  6. Bake in preheated 175°C/350°F oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
  7. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

{ 23 comments }

Gianduja Roulade

March 25, 2011

Gianduja Roulade

That’s just fancy talk for rich hazelnut chocolate ganache rolled into a hazelnut sheet cake rich with chocolate and more hazelnuts.

As you’ve probably noticed, there is a lot of chocolate being eaten in the Purple Foodie household. And this time, with a bag of fresh hazelnuts at hand, I had to put together one of the world’s greatest food pairings: chocolate + hazelnut.

I made the hazelnut ganache from scratch – which means I toasted the hazelnuts, ground it to a paste, and then mixed it with dark chocolate and cream. If the cake didn’t bake in 8 minutes, I’m pretty sure I’d have licked the bowl of ganache clean.

If you’re not particularly inclined on making the ganache from scratch, you could make the ganache with Nutella. Will work just as well.

Gianduja Roulade Recipe

Adapted from: Pure Dessert (USA | UK | India)
Equipment: A 12×16 inch or 11×17 inch baking sheets with rimmed edges, or two 9×9 inch baking pans, or jelly roll pans.

Gianduja Ganache

Ingredients

  • 4 oz / 100g hazelnuts, toasted
  • 4 oz / 100g dark chocolate
  • 4 oz / 100g icing sugar
  • 8 oz / 200g light cream (I use 25% fat)

Cooking Directions

  1. Toast the hazelnuts in at 175°C/350°F, until they are fragrant and light brown. Let them cool a little before transferring it to a mixer for grind to a paste starting with half the sugar, and then adding the rest of the sugar until it's a homogenous paste. Transfer this paste to a bowl and then add the chocolate. In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil and pour it over the chocolate-hazelnut mixture. Stir till all the chocolate has melted and then refrigerate until ready to do.

Hazelnut Cake

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 1.5 oz / 50g hazelnuts, toasted
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 6 oz/ 180g dark chocolate
  • 4 oz/ 100g butter
  • 4 eggs, seperated
  • 2/3rd cup / 130g caster sugar
  • cocoa powder, for dusting

Cooking Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F.
  2. Pulse the nuts with the flour in a food processor until finely ground. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, melt the chocolate and butter over a pot of simmering water. Once melted, remove from heat and then stir in the egg yolks and half the sugar (1/3rd cup).
  4. In another bowl whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Then slowly add the remaining sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.
  5. Fold in about a 1/4th of the whites into the egg mixture. Then scrape all of the egg mixture into the bowl, sprinkle with the flour and hazelnut mixture and fold it in.
  6. Spread the batter evenly into prepared pans. I preferred making mine into smaller roulades, so I divided the batter into two 9 inch square pans.
  7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.Now, finally when the cake has cooled, invert it on a sheet of foil and then spread it with the gianduja paste. Start rolling it with the help of the foil. There will be cracks, but it gets less severe as it thickens to one cake.
  8. Refrigerate for a while before slicing, to have neat slices. Dust with cocoa powder to serve.

{ 10 comments }

Chocolate Brownie

March 2, 2011

Chocolate Brownies
Rich. Chocolate. Brownies.

I bet you’re smiling already.

I haven’t met a person who didn’t get happy at the very thought of brownies. You don’t need me to tell you that they’re made with dark chocolate, heaps of cocoa, and are supremely addictive. Just the fact that they’re brownies gives them a ticket to your bookmark folder.

These brownies are Nigel Slater’s rather modestly titled ‘My Very Good Chocolate Brownies’ from his book the Kitchen Diaries. I’ve had this book for a while, but didn’t bake from it until today. Every time I pulled it out, I’d get distracted by his conversational commentary, and the baking took a backseat. These also popularly known as 24-carat brownies, simply because there are no nuts or flavourings of any kind, just pure muddy brownies.

Chocolate Brownies

My verdict: I’d expected a shiny crust, but I didn’t get that, and they left me greasy-fingered, but not in a bad way. They taste even better after a day. But then, I think that all brownies do. Gooey, with a brittle crust, they are rather dark with all that cocoa powder.

I do love the brownies from Baked, but I think my brownie preference is changing. I can’t decide if I like the gooey kind or the cakey kind. Not the kind that’s cakey, dry, and rubbery with a million air pockets like the kind you get in most pastry shops in the city, just the kind that is cakey owing to being lighter in texture. Maybe you can help me by pointing me to your favourite brownie recipe?

Chocolate Brownies

Muddy Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Adapted from: Kitchen Diaries, Nigel Slater (USA | UK | India)
Yield: 16 big pieces.

Ingredients:

200g dark chocolate
60g flour
60g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
250g butter
300g caster sugar
3 eggs + 1 egg yolk

Equipment:
9 inch/23cm square baking tin

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line the baking tray with parchment.
  2. In a small bowl, melt the chocolate over simmering water. Set aside.
  3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Set aside.
  4. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs.
  5. Stir in the melted chocolate until thoroughly incorporated, and then finally, fold in the flour, making sure that you don’t over mix the batter.
  6. Pour it into the pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. Test with a skewer- it should come out sticky with brownie clumped up in places, and not look like smooth, raw batter. If still underdone, switch off the oven, and pop it back in for another five minutes. Anything more than that will ruin it, because brownies continue to cook in all that trapped heat even after they’re pulled out of the oven.
  7. Let it cool for at least an hour to get well defined pieces, or dive in with your spoon if patience isn’t one of your strongest points.

{ 34 comments }

Taking Snickers to the Next Level

February 26, 2011

Better than Snickers Squares

Buttery shortbread. Caramelised cashews. Dulce de leche. 70% dark chocolate.

Each, delicious on its own. But can you imagine what it’d be like when they all came together, layered one on top of another on top of another on top of another? You cannot. Even if you know the distinct taste of each of them, you cannot. Because what you’re going to taste when you bite into a bar of this layered goodness, is going to beat the sum of the parts. Like me, you will be left wondering why you didn’t double the recipe.

But you are lucky. You’ve already been warned.

Every now and then, I sit down and thumb through my cookbooks. Gawk at the beautiful photos, stick post-it notes, leave bookmarks between pages, and diligently note down in my planner the recipes I’m going to try that month. This recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s book (my baking bible) is one such recipe.

While the original recipe calls for peanuts, I used cashews because I like them a lot more. I also toasted them a little before caramelizing, to have a well-rounded, nutty flavour coming through. It’s important to use chocolate with high cacao content so that it balances the sugary sweet dulce de leche.

Want to still take it up a notch? Serve it with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Recipe for Homemade Snickers from scratch (with cashews!)

Yeild: 16 squares
Shortbread
1 cup / 120g. flour
1/4th cup / 50g. caster sugar
2 tbsp icing sugar
1/2cup / 100g. butter
1 large egg yolk, beaten
Filling (caramelised nuts + dulce de leche)
1/3rd cup / 67g caster sugar
3 tbsp water
150g / 5 oz. roasted salted cashews (or peanuts, if you like)
1 – 1½ cups dulce de leche (making your own is SO easy)
Topping
7oz. / 200g dark chocolate
2 oz/ 60g butter
Equipment:
Directions:
  1. Butter an 8 inch square pan and preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
  2. To make the shortcrust: mix all the dry ingredients of the shortcrust together, then add in the pieces of cold butter and combine together until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Pour the yolk over the mixture and bring the dough together, until it clumps to form a ball.
  3. Press the dough into the baking pan and prick the dough with a fork. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until slightly golden on the edges. Let it cool completely before filling.
  4. For the filling: Have a baking tray lined with parchment or a silpat ready on the side. In a saucepan, heat the sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves and begins to colour slightly. Toss the cashews and keep stirring to coat the nuts. Once it’s an amber colour, turn it out on the silpat and spread it to single layer. Cool the nuts to room temperature, and then break it up to smaller pieces for the filling. Keep some for sprinkling on the finished squares (but my dad gobbled them all down thinking they were leftovers). Once cool mix together the dulce de leche with the candied nuts and spread on the cooled shortbread.
  5. For the chocolate topping: Melt the chocolate and butter together and pour it over the dulce de leche filling. Smoothen with a spatula. Refrigerate for 3 hours before slicing. It’s hard, but you gotta do it for those perfect squares.
  6. At the end of the long three hour wait, cut it into 16 squares and wolf down.

{ 25 comments }

Chocolate Chip Muffins

July 1, 2010

Chocolate Chip Mufins

I had a sudden chocolate craving yesterday and that gave me the perfect reason to break into my new bag of dark chocolate. I needed something that was very chocolatey (naturally), that would be put together real fast and that was new to experiment with. Thumbing through my books, a lot of the cakes looked pretty elaborate. The time between picking the recipe and putting a piece of chocolate goodness in my mouth was a lot more than  I could handle.

And then I found the perfect recipe for the day – chocolate chip muffins in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. The photograph of the muffins looked too good to pass up. And since they were muffins, I didn’t have to bother with making a ganache for the icing. Plus they looked wonderfully moist for a muffin, and naturally so because the recipe has more butter than muffin recipes usually have. I’m not complaining.

I tossed everything together in a jiffy (that’s why the lack of in-process photographs) and in twenty minutes I had warm, super moist muffins, oozing with melted dark chocolate chunks. Bliss.

Chocolate Chip Mufins

Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

Adapted from: The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (such a cute book!) (UK | India)

Yield: 12 muffins

Note:

  • An interesting point worth nothing is that the method is somewhat a cross between a cake and a muffin – it begins with creaming the eggs and sugar together, much like we do in cakes. It even calls for adding the dry and the wet ingredients alternately like a lot of the cake recipes on this blog. As for the muffin angle – it includes stirring in the butter right in the end.
  • The muffin’s pretty dense, so you can safely fill the muffin cups more than 2/3rd full.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 cup / 200g sugar
1/4th tsp vanilla extract
1 cup / 120g flour
6 tbsp / 36g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
2/3rd cup / 160ml milk
1 stick + 3 tbsp / 150g butter, melted
4 oz. / 115g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Equipment:
Muffin tray

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C. In a bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder.
  2. Beat the sugar and eggs together until thoroughly mixed and pale in colour, add the vanilla extract.
  3. Add the flour mixture and the milk alternately into the egg mixture, until just incorporated. Start and end with flour.
  4. Stir in the melted butter and fold in the dark chocolate until evenly dispersed.
  5. Spoon the batter into the muffin tray lined with paper liners and bake for about 15-17 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
  6. Eat warm!

{ 50 comments }

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