RECIPE: IMPROVISED DARK CHOCOLATE & ALMOND COOKIES
From Anzac biscuits the weekend before last to another virtual iso cookie baking date with themacarondiaries this past weekend. We both used Beatrix Bakes’ ‘A Smoky, salty chocolate chip cookie’ recipe as a starting point but we failed to source some lapsang souchong tea leaves; the ‘smoky’ element of the cookie and what had originally lured us to this recipe. But the differences didn’t stop there, at least on my end. I didn’t have enough butter on hand (125g out of the required 240 g) and started switching up the measurements of particular ingredients here and there as a buffer. The results? Perfectly rounded dark chocolate and almond cookies, sans smoky, subtly sweet punctured with nutty almonds and dark chocolate, with a side of cookie offcuts. Hang on, back up a sec… offcuts, you ask? Perfectly rounded? With last week’s Anzac biscuit bake on my mind, where there was essentially no spread, I severely underestimated the spread of these cookies in the oven…
I took a peek at 10 minutes after popping the first tray into the oven. Uh oh. No social distancing observed between some of the cookies but things weren’t too dire. I could still make out the boundaries of each cookie - I’ll just have some squarish looking cookies with some blunt ends.
At 15 minutes, my stomach plummeted. All 12 cookies had converged into a single, giant cookie blob. Cookie crumble for days - we do have some vanilla ice cream in the freezer.
But then a lightbulb moment struck, and out came the scone cutter. Works beautifully on the soft, fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies as is does on scone dough. From one cookie blob to 12 perfectly rounded cookies in no time. Huzzah! As for the offcuts? Still good to chow down or crushed up for ice cream crumble as originally planned.
Aside from the super-spreading mishap, I quite enjoyed the flavour and texture of this cookie, so I’ve posted the recipe below for these - I think the name improvised dark chocolate and almond cookies suits nicely, no?
Themacarondiaries’ walnut and dark chocolate cookies.
I met up with themacarondiaries a few days after our bake for a cookie swap. Despite ‘baking together’, themacarondiaries followed the Beatrix Bakes recipe a lot more closely, used the suggested walnuts instead of almonds and so the end product was quite different to mine. In the original recipe with the higher butter quantity, half of the butter is creamed with the sugar while the other half is browned over the stove. This created a beautifully short cookie that both crumbles and melts when you take a bite. Will definitely be giving this recipe another go next time, minus the improvising.
THE IMPROVISED DARK CHOCOLATE AND ALMOND COOKIE
INGREDIENTS
70 g almonds
125 g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 eggs
100 g Lindt 85% dark chocolate block, chopped
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant coffee
optional: sea salt flakes for sprinkling on top
METHODS
Preheat the oven to 150 C fan forced.
Place the almonds on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until visibly toasted on the outside. Remove from oven and set aside to cool before chopping. Reduce the oven to 130 C.
In a stand mixer set at medium speed, beat the butter, brown and raw sugars for 5 minutes.
Increase the speed of the stand mixer to high, and gradually add each egg.
For this step, you can continue to use the stand mixer (reduce the speed to low) or go old school with a spatula and some elbow grease to incorporate the chopped almonds and dark chocolate, and dry ingredients into the wet mixture.
Place one heaped tablespoon of cookie mixture onto a lined baking tray, ensuring ample space (~5 cm) between each cookie to allow for spreading.
NOTE. These WILL spread. I underestimated the spread and placed three heaped tablespoons per cookie…
Sprinkle a few sea salt flakes on top of each cookie if so desired.
Bake cookies for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown, to yield a crispy-chewy cookie. Bake for longer if you prefer a crispier cookie. Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.
Enjoy!