World Peace Cookies

Wow! was the first word my husband uttered as this chocolate taste sensation exploded in his mouth. I already knew that he would like them as I had quickly scoffed 2 when they came out of the oven...just for quality control purposes, of course!

After all the praise Nancy has given them, I knew I had to make these. Oh my gosh, these have now definitely become my new number 1 favourite cookie. If you like chocolate, you will adore these. I only made them yesterday and between me and my hubby we have nearly eaten the whole lot! The only trouble is you can't just have one...they are so yummy you just keep eating them.

The recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate so I used Whittaker's Dark Ghana which is 72% cocoa solids. Perfect choice...I used chopped it into small chunks, probably chocolate drop size.

World Peace Cookies
1¼ cups all purpose flour
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
4 ozs plus 3 tbsps butter
⅔ cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup caster sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 ozs bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks or chips

Beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add sugars, salt and vanilla extract & beat for 2 minutes more.

Add sifted dry ingredients and and mix just until flour disappears into the dough. For the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added. Don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly.

Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix to incorporate.

Turn the dough onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it into half. Shape the dough into logs that are about 1½ inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 3 hours.

Using a thin, sharp knife, slice the logs into ½ inch rounds. They are likely to crack as you cut them. Don't worry, just push the cookie back together.

Place on baking sheets with about 1 inch between cookies.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 12 minutes. They won't look done nor will they be firm but that is how they should look. Let the ccokies rest and transfer to a cooling rack.

Source: Dorie Greenspan's From My Home to Yours.

Chocolate Chunkers

Okay I think I have found the winner! Forget about making any more on my list! This is undoubtably one of the most divine cookies I have ever tasted. Chocolately, with hunks of chocolate, the sharpness of cranberries and the crunch of brazil nuts. Certainly not a cookie to make if you are on a budget, but money, schmoney when it comes to this chocolate treasure!

Dorie uses raisins and peanuts in her cookies, but I decided to use brazil nuts and cranberries, which give a little bit of a contrast to the sweetness of the cookie.

Chocolate Chunkers

⅓ cup all purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large eggs, at room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 cup store bought chocolate chips or chunks
6 oz premium quality milk or white chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 cup store bought chocolate chips or chunks
1½ cups coarsely chopped nuts, preferably salted peanuts or toasted pecans

1 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or finely chopped moist, plump dried apricots.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.

Set a heat proof bowl over the saucepan of simmering water and add the butter, bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate. Stir occasionally until just melted. It should be smooth and shiny, but not so hot that the butter separates. Remove bowl from the heat and set to cool.

Beat eggs and sugar with a mixer on medium high speed for about 2 minutes, until they are pale and foamy.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Add melted chocolate and butter with mixer on low speed.

Add dry ingredients. Mix until dough is just combined, then add the semisweet and white chocolate chunks, nuts and raisins. Dough will be very chunky!

Drop tablespoons of dough onto baking sheet about 2” apart and cook at 180° C (350° F) for 10-12 minutes. The top of the cookies will look crunchy, but inside will be soft.

Source: Dorie Greenspan "Baking, from my house to yours".

Chunky Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

Part 2 of the great cookie bake-off! I must admit I was really looking forward to making these cookies as I love the combo of peanut butter and chocolate. I fell in love with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups when I went to the USA a few years ago. I had never tasted them before until one evil friend, who shall remain nameless, forced one upon me knowing my weakness for chocolate and peanut butter. I think I went over my luggage limit on the way home and I can surely say it was in no small way related to the fact that I had rather a large amount of Reese's PBC in my suitcase!!

These cookies were very nice but I don't think I would put quite so much cinnamon in them next time. They were quite spicy with the 2 teaspoons. I also added half chocolate and half raisins to give the illusion that they were a teensy bit healthy! Hubby has certainly given them the thumbs-up though. I am working tonight so will take a bunch along to work for those 3am munchies.

Chocolate Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

3 cups oats

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt

8 ozs unsalted butter

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

9ozs chocolate drops / raisins / nuts whatever

Whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, spices and salt.

Beat the butter, sugars and peanut butter on medium speed until smooth an creamy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, beating only until just blended.

Mix in the chocolate, raisins or whatever else you might want to add.

Drop rounded tablespoons onto baking sheets, placing 2 inches apart.

Bake for about 15 minutes.

Makes 60 cookies.

Source: Dorie Greenspan. Baking: From my house to yours.

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

I got an invitation to go to a Cookie Swap next weekend and take along a batch of my favourite cookies. Crikey, how does one decide which is one's favourite cookie? There's not many cookies I don't like, so I decided to get the family to help me decide. We pored over the cookbooks but Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From my house to yours got the definite thumbs up from everyone so we made a short-list of cookies to bake this week....Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops, Granola Grabbers, Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters, Chocolate Chipsters and Chocolate Chip Cookies. See a theme occurring there!! This is such a fantastic book and it was very hard to limit ourselves to just 5 cookies.

Now, unfortunately, one of the cookie swapees is allergic to chocolate so that poses a small problem as all these contain chocolate apart from the Granola Grabbers. Imagine that...allergic to one of life's food groups!! So I thought about taking the Granola Grabbers and one other cookie.

The first cookie we made was the Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. These are an absolute taste sensation....chocolately and soft with chunks of chocolate and malt. Mmmmm! They spread a lot so I was glad that I had actually followed the recipe for once and allowed 2 inches between cookies on the tray. Usually I cram as many as I can onto the tray!

I have no idea what Whoppers are, but they sound very similar to Maltesers so I used them instead. I also used Ovaltine as I am sure I would not find malted milk powder in my local supermarket. Everything else I kept as the recipe said.

Dorie also says they are great with ice cream too and she is sooo right. I crumbled up a biscuit into a bowl of French Vanilla icecream for dessert. It was like cookies and cream, but oh so much better!

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Ovaltine
¼ cup cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
4 oz unsalted butter, plus 3 tablespoons
⅔ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup milk
2 cups Maltesers
1 cup chocolate drops

Sift together the flour Ovaltine, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until very smooth.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla; don’t be concerned if the mixture looks curdled-it will even out when the dry ingredients are added.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add half the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Mix in the milk then the remaining dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. The batter will look more like fudge frosting than cookie dough-and that’s fine.

With the mixer on low, or by hand with a rubber spatula, mix the malted milk balls and chopped chocolate.

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoonful onto sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space between.

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes. When done, the cookies will be puffed and set but slightly soft to touch. Let the cookies the rest for 2 minutes before using a wide metal spatula to transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.

From Dorie Greenspan's Baking: My house to yours