Raccoon and Lobster

As I’ve said in the past, I’m not really one for sweets. My preference is to bake and then give away any desserts I make, as I’m usually sick of whatever it is by the time it comes out of the oven. Between checking the batter and testing for doneness, I’ve usually had enough. My mother started complaining about losing her sweet tooth when she was in her twenties, and her mother used to do the same to her, so it with a strong sense of family tradition that I grump to my pups about how I just don’t have an appetite for sweets anymore.

And yet it came to be that after baking these cookies last night, I forced The Boyfriend to join me in a midnight cross-town schlep to give these damn things away. Even in the course of wrapping them up for the delivery, a few of the chocolate devils managed to find their way into my mouth. And somehow during the car ride over, the plate got lighter again. I managed to save some so that I could take pictures in the sun, but as I sit here typing, my mouth is suspiciously covered in crumbs.

I just ate another one. Dammit.

The last time I made these was for a cookie exchange, and they were flown across the continent not long after coming out of the oven so I was spared this horribly delicious fate. This time, I had no one ready to remove them from my presence and I had ran out of chocolate chips and was forced to use chopped Valrhona fèves to make them even more tempting. Help. Another one just found its way into my mouth.

World Peace Cookies by Dorie Greenspan via Smitten Kitchen

makes about 40 cookies

1¼ cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons or 150 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (120 grams) packed light brown sugar
¼ cup (50 grams) sugar
½ teaspoon fleur de sel or ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup  (150 grams) chopped Valrhona fèves or chocolate chips.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking soda and set aside.

Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the salt and vanilla and mix to combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter and pulse a few times to combine, covering the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel to prevent flyaway. Stir in chocolate.

Gather the dough and divide into two. Roll each half out into a smooth log about 1½ inches in diameter and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 3 days (you can shorten the cooling time by sticking it in the freezer for 20 minutes immediately after wrapping and then moving it to the fridge for 30-40 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Slice the cookies into ½ inch slices and bake for 12 minutes. Dough will still be soft. Serve warm or at room temperature with milk.

Sometimes a well intentioned blog post goes awry when the outcome is so delicious that it gets devoured before you can take a proper photo. There were only 9 misshapen cookies left when I took this picture, and I chose to snap two pictures and stuff them in my mouth instead of spending more time making them look more photogenic.

Cocoa Shortbread

1 cup AP flour
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300°F. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in butter with pastry cutter. Add vanilla and shape into a ball. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch and cut with cookie cutter. Bake on parchment paper lined sheets for 20-25 minutes, until firm. Let cool.

Chocolate Mousse
1 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
8 oz Semisweet Chocolate Chips

Heat 1/2 cup of the cream until almost to a boil and pour into a bowl over the chocolate chips. Stir until smooth. Whip remainder of the cream and gently fold in chocolate mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use.

When cookies are cool, smear mousse on cookies to make sandwiches. Alternately, for maximum gluttony points, serve mousse in tiny Le Creuset cocottes and use cookies as spoons.

Between visits to surfas and crate and barrel, I managed to pick up quite a lot of kitchen and dining supplies that needed to be put to use. Coconut macaroons and allowed me to try out my new cookie scoop and they look like more work than they actually are, which is a bonus for when you wanna impress people without actually slaving away.

Recipe taken from Brown Eyed Baker

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg white
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
3 ½ cups sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 325°. Combine milk, egg, vanilla and salt. Stir in the coconut until well blended and then scoop onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes depending on cookie size.

My mix was apparently too wet and once the baking started the macaroons began to ooze. When they were cooling on the sheet I quickly performed some ooze-ectomys with the spatula and discarded the evidence of my shame*. I think I was supposed to really pack down the coconut during the measuring.

When macaroons are cool, melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler and gracelessly smear, dip, or plaster the chocolate onto the cookies. Let cool. Check every 5 minutes until you realize that you’re supposed to refrigerate them for 15 minutes to set the chocolate.

*And by discard, I mean force fed them to the boyfriend. He described it as a mixture of delicious and cloyingly over-sweet (the ooze is primarily sweetened condensed milk).