Happy Leap day!
I have been meaning to share a couple of recipes this past month but haven't been able to do so. Well, starting this year I wanted there to be at least one post per month. 2-3 would be better, 4-5 would be great! Alas, we don't get to live in dreamland. But life, on Earth, does give you small yet meaningful gifts including an odd extra day every couple of years. Today morning when I was sulking, thinking 'There goes my resolution regarding this blog', I realized all is not lost! And here I am trying to make the most of the '28 dino pe ek din Free!' offer.
On to today's recipe. Chocolate cookies. Yup, nothing fancy, nothing extravagant, no frosting or decoration. Simple chocolate cookies. Simple, yet divine. And eggless.
These cookies are easy to put together and the prepared dough can be stored in refrigerator for about a week. So you can have fresh baked cookies whenever you have a craving. The dough needs to be refrigerated for at least 30 minutes before baking. Refrigerating the dough stops it from spreading too much while baking which yields thicker cookies. You can either shape the cookies immediately, refrigerate them for half an hour and then bake. Or do it the way I did, shape the dough in two logs roughly 1 1/5" in diameter, wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate the logs. Then when you want to bake, just unwrap the logs and cut cookies of equal thickness and bake. When doing it this way, ensure that there are not air pockets in the wrapped dough bundle, or the dough becomes dry and the cookies will be very brittle and dry.
The original recipe is by Nigella Lawson, from here. I find Nigella's recipes a bit rich for my taste and I tend to tweak them a little to get results of my liking. But I haven't tweaked this recipe except for adding some vanilla extract. There was this one time when I even replaced some of the flour with equal weight of ragi flour. The results were equally great. The original recipe calls for a chocolate glaze. I found the cookies scrumptious on their own so I omitted the glaze.
Chocolate is the prominent flavour in this cookie which we get from the cocoa powder, so use the best quality cocoa powder you can get. I used Nilgiri's cocoa powder.
I have baked these cookies numerous times since last Christmas; they don't last longer than 2-3 days. That is how good they are. I even earned a thumbs up from my kiddo. I hope you will try it out.
Here's the recipe.
1 cup + 2 Tbsp, 250g butter, room temperature
1 cup, 150g powdered sugar, not icing sugar
1/3 cup, 40 g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups + 2 Tbsp, 300g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a cookie baking sheet/tray with parchment paper or baking paper. It helps if you have two sheets so that one sheet can cool while the other is in the oven. If you have only one baking sheet, just let it cool down to room temperature before you bake the subsequent batch.
Cream the butter and sugar till the mixture is fluffy and light in color. Add the vanilla extract and mix.
Sift the cocoa powder. Add to the butter mixture and mix till evenly combined.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and a pinch of salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 2-3 batches. Mix till combined. The dough will be a bit sticky.
Apply some butter or ghee to your palms and roll the dough into 1 to 1.5" round balls, flatten them slightly and place on the baking tray. Try to get all the balls of same size. This ensures that all cookies in a batch are evenly baked. These cookies spread so do not crowd the baking tray. Keep 1" gaps. Place baking sheet in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Place the baking sheet in oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes. The time will vary by 2-3 minutes based on the size and thickness of the cookie. The cookies will be soft when you take them out of the oven, but they will harden once cooled. Baking a small batch of 2-3 cookies to find the baking time is always better.
Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, them keep them on a cooling rack, a flat sieve (channi/chaalni) works too. Once the cookies are completely cool, keep them in an airtight container.
Happy Baking!
Shwe
I have been meaning to share a couple of recipes this past month but haven't been able to do so. Well, starting this year I wanted there to be at least one post per month. 2-3 would be better, 4-5 would be great! Alas, we don't get to live in dreamland. But life, on Earth, does give you small yet meaningful gifts including an odd extra day every couple of years. Today morning when I was sulking, thinking 'There goes my resolution regarding this blog', I realized all is not lost! And here I am trying to make the most of the '28 dino pe ek din Free!' offer.
On to today's recipe. Chocolate cookies. Yup, nothing fancy, nothing extravagant, no frosting or decoration. Simple chocolate cookies. Simple, yet divine. And eggless.
These cookies are easy to put together and the prepared dough can be stored in refrigerator for about a week. So you can have fresh baked cookies whenever you have a craving. The dough needs to be refrigerated for at least 30 minutes before baking. Refrigerating the dough stops it from spreading too much while baking which yields thicker cookies. You can either shape the cookies immediately, refrigerate them for half an hour and then bake. Or do it the way I did, shape the dough in two logs roughly 1 1/5" in diameter, wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate the logs. Then when you want to bake, just unwrap the logs and cut cookies of equal thickness and bake. When doing it this way, ensure that there are not air pockets in the wrapped dough bundle, or the dough becomes dry and the cookies will be very brittle and dry.
The original recipe is by Nigella Lawson, from here. I find Nigella's recipes a bit rich for my taste and I tend to tweak them a little to get results of my liking. But I haven't tweaked this recipe except for adding some vanilla extract. There was this one time when I even replaced some of the flour with equal weight of ragi flour. The results were equally great. The original recipe calls for a chocolate glaze. I found the cookies scrumptious on their own so I omitted the glaze.
Chocolate is the prominent flavour in this cookie which we get from the cocoa powder, so use the best quality cocoa powder you can get. I used Nilgiri's cocoa powder.
I have baked these cookies numerous times since last Christmas; they don't last longer than 2-3 days. That is how good they are. I even earned a thumbs up from my kiddo. I hope you will try it out.
Here's the recipe.
Chocolate cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 Tbsp, 250g butter, room temperature
1 cup, 150g powdered sugar, not icing sugar
1/3 cup, 40 g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups + 2 Tbsp, 300g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Steps:
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a cookie baking sheet/tray with parchment paper or baking paper. It helps if you have two sheets so that one sheet can cool while the other is in the oven. If you have only one baking sheet, just let it cool down to room temperature before you bake the subsequent batch.
Cream the butter and sugar till the mixture is fluffy and light in color. Add the vanilla extract and mix.
Sift the cocoa powder. Add to the butter mixture and mix till evenly combined.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and a pinch of salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 2-3 batches. Mix till combined. The dough will be a bit sticky.
Apply some butter or ghee to your palms and roll the dough into 1 to 1.5" round balls, flatten them slightly and place on the baking tray. Try to get all the balls of same size. This ensures that all cookies in a batch are evenly baked. These cookies spread so do not crowd the baking tray. Keep 1" gaps. Place baking sheet in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Place the baking sheet in oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes. The time will vary by 2-3 minutes based on the size and thickness of the cookie. The cookies will be soft when you take them out of the oven, but they will harden once cooled. Baking a small batch of 2-3 cookies to find the baking time is always better.
Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, them keep them on a cooling rack, a flat sieve (channi/chaalni) works too. Once the cookies are completely cool, keep them in an airtight container.
Happy Baking!
Shwe
