Once Bitten, Twice Not Shy

 

When I first got hold of my Martha Stewart Cookies, I thought to myself that there would be lots of delicious cookies for me to look forward to. The book seem to promise delectable cookie recipes with mouth-watering pictures. Nah. I was proven wrong when I tried out my first Martha Stewart cookie. It ended up as a melted pool of buttery mess in the oven. I could not bear to dump them and so I tried to salvage them to the best of my ability.

The cookies ended up staying in the oven much longer to firm up. What I gathered from the experience was  the recipe had way too little flour to create a good structure. Taste-wise, there were too many elements, causing the cookie to lose it focus. As the saying goes, "too many cooks spoil the broth".

I thought of chucking the book aside after the horrid experience. Later, I thought I would give the book another chance, to prove that my purchase was not all in vain .

Browsing through the book, I decided upon a Milk Chocolate Cookie recipe. This time round, I checked the ingredient list to make sure that it is a safe recipe and not one that would spell disaster.

Thankfully, Martha Stewart did not disappoint this time round. The cookies were supremely rich, chewy and brownie-like. In fact, It would have made a good brownie recipe.

Do not let the wrinkled appearance of these round disks fool you. They certainly spell chocolate with a capital C.

On my visit to NTUC Xtra today, I picked up a book - 300 Best Chocolate Recipes, at a great bargain price of 12 SGD. It would have cost around 33 SGD elsewhere. The author Julie Hasson had caught my eye and without much consideration, I made the purchase.

Milk Chocolate Cookies ( recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Cookies )

Equipment: Cookie trays/ sheet, baking parchment/paper

Cookie Dough:

140g plain flour

40g dutch processed cocoa powder ( I used Varlhona)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

220g milk chocolate, ( 110g coarsely chopped, more if desire and 110g finely chopped)

115g butter, cubed

200g caster sugar (try cutting down on this)

2 eggs (60g each including shell)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2) Line cookie pans with baking paper.
3) Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk together to ensure uniform distribution.
4) Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water without the bowl touching the water.This is known as a double boiler. Melt the finely chopped chocolate and butter. Stir to obtain a smooth mixture. Allow to cool.
5) In a large bowl, beat cooled chocolate mixture, sugar, eggs and vanilla on medium speed until well combined. Add in flour mixture in 3 batches and beat on low speed to obtain a smooth batter. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with a spatula to incoorporate loose flour. The resulting batter is very thick.
6) Fold in coarsely chopped milk chocolate chunks.
7) Scoop out rounded (slightly heaped) tablespoons of dough onto lined trays. Bake for 15 minutes. When done, the cookies will look puffy and soft but will deflate into flat disks upon cooling. Allow to cool for 2 minutes on tray before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Note:
1) Do 2 cookies as a test batch to determine your baking time. Repeat if necessary.
2) Cookies will stick to baking paper. Use a spatula to scrape underneath the cookies slowly to release them.
3) Try cutting down on the sugar as cookies are quite sweet.