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These are an excellent source of
dietary chocolate, presented in a
pleasingly chewy and easy-to-eat package. They are also very easy and
fast to make.
Ingredients
All measures are given in grams (g), so get yourself a decent digital
scale for the kitchen and cut your washing up. I use a Pelouze "postal
scale" (which I got in about 1996, long before digital scales
started appearing in cooking stores), it is sold in office supply
stores and will weigh up to 2000g (about 4.5lbs) in 2g increments.
These days there are some good, and perhaps less expensive,
alternatives to be found in most stores that sell cookware. This works
well for most ingredients (including liquids), just put your mixing
bowl on the scale, hit the "zero" button and pour everything into the
one bowl. For the very small quantities like salt and baking powder I
have a second scale (A Salter model 1250)
that weighs up to about 250g in 0.1g increments (I got this from LondonDrugs who sell it as a
"dietary scale").
- 210g white flour
- 230g white sugar
- 64g brown sugar
- 48g cocoa powder
- 7g baking powder
- 5g salt
- 60g margarine (typically a half a stick) or butter,
softened
(microwave 30-60 sec on 3/10ths power)
- 2 whole large eggs (usually about 110-120g)
- 5g vanilla (optional)
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 400F (I use convection mode)
- In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, breaking up
any
lumps of
brown
sugar. Stir in margarine until the mixture is well combined and
crumbly.
Add eggs and (vanilla if desired) and stir just until the dough comes
together. I find this works very well in a KitchenAid stand mixer
on minimum speed for about a minute, just give the ingredients a short
stir with a fork before putting the bowl on the machine, otherwise you
can get a cloud of cocoa powder flying everywhere and making a big mess.
- Roll the dough into 1 1/2inch balls by hand. Place the
balls
about 2
inches appart onto a cookie sheet (say 12 per sheet) that has been
sprayed with non-stick spray (or rubbed with butter). I like to use a
little silicone basting brush to apply the butter, this brush can then
be washed in the dishwasher.
- Bake for 9 minutes, until just set around the edges but
still
soft
in the middle.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Take some to work and make lots of friends.
- Makes 20-26 cookies depending on the size of a 1 1/2 inch
ball.
Modifications
I have found that adding a bit of jam or a marichino cherry to the top
of the cookies (just make a depression with your thumb and spoon in a
bit of jam) can make a very nice variation. In the picture at the top
of this page I used raspberry jam and marichino cherries.
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