Tag: cocoa

Put the almond in the cocoa powder and eat it all up

What?  That doesn’t work? Fine.

We continue our adventures with gluten free baking this week.

In general, my weekly trips to Trader Joes are precise,  surgical and leave little room for casual perusal.  Experience has taught me that unless I show up at a specific Trader Joes right as it opens on Sunday morning, the shopping experience will leave me wanting to poke someone’s eye out with one of those little toothpicks they use to serve the samples (see blog name for explanation).

Every once in a while (like once a year), I get lucky and it seems like the only people in the store are me and the friendly staff.  This happened recently and I actually paused to look around the nut butter section while picking up the sun butter for last week’s post.  This was probably a bad idea on my part because what did I spy with my little eye?  None other than Nutella’s American cousin: Cocoa Almond Spread.

For reason’s I’ve just explained, I’d never seen this concoction before and knew immediately that I had to make something with it (this has absolutely nothing to do with a strong desired to sit down with the jar and a spoon…how dare you suggest this).  The spread has the same consistency as almond butter (duh).  Thicker than nutella.  It’s also less sweet than the hazelnut version (though still sweet enough to reduce the sugar in the recipe).

As soon as I got home, I pulled my almond flour out of the freezer and got to work using the sun butter blossoms recipe as a blueprint.

The almond flour obviously behaved very differently than the corn flour and, with about a tablespoon and a half of dough, I go beautiful, perfectly round 3 1/2 inch cookies.  They had a nice texture reminiscent of their fancier kin, the macaron.

Seeing the finished versions cooling on their wire racks sent my brain to a singular place.

That’s right, these made the perfect ice cream sandwich cookies.  You could also spread a nice layer of the cocoa almond butter on the inside of a cookie, top it with another and you’d have yourself an excellent sandwich cookie.

Soundtrack

Ray LaMontagne

Cocoa Almond Cookies

recipes makes about 18 (1 1/2 dozen, is easily doubled)

Ingredients

  • 1 C cocoa almond butter
  • 1/3 C sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 C almond meal/flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line 2-4 baking pans with parchment paper
  2. Using a standing or hand mixer, cream together the sugar and cocoa almond butter for two-to-three minutes.
  3. Beat-in the egg and vanilla until batter is smooth.
  4. By hand, sift-in flour and baking powder and then fold until the flour is just combined into the batter.
  5. Roll batter into balls using about 1 1/2 TBS (less if you want a smaller cookie).
  6. Set balls on lined baking sheets about three-inches apart.  Cookies will spread significantly (diameter will nearly triple).
  7. Bake 8-10 minutes until cookies appear set.
  8. Slide parchment off of cookie sheets and allow cookies to cool on the parchment.
  9. Ice cream optional!

Two ways to world peace

I love this cookie recipe.  Like, cookie monster style love it.  It is so simple and elegant and universally delicious that I really, really wish I had invented it.  But I didn’t.   Pierre Herme did.  And then Dorie Greenspan re-christened the recipe with its current namesake.  For that, they both  may very well deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.  Or at least a nomination.

This cookie is effectively a chocolate sable.  It is buttery, crumbly and very, very chocolatey.  The best part?  You can make up few batches, store them in the freezer and then bake them off at will.

The recipe starts with cocoa.  My weapon of choice when it comes to cocoa is this valrhona cocoa powder I buy by the pound at Surfas in Culver City, CA.

At the end we’ll add some chopped chocolate (or in my case, teeny tiny chocolate chips).

So where were we?  Oh yes, the middle.  Butter and sugar are creamed in the usual way.  And then the secret ingredient is added: Fleur de sel.  French sea salt.  If you don’t have any in your pantry, it is well worth the small investment I promise!  Following this, the remaining dry ingredients are added and mixed in either a standing mixer or by hand until just combined.

Then, it’s time to get brawny.  A few more folds by hand until the flour disappears (but really, just barely).

Add in the chocolate (chips, chunks, or nuggets).

Roll into a log and then into the fridge (or freezer if you don’t plan to bake them in the immediate).

When ready to bake, slice the log and place dough disks on baking sheets.

And in about ten minutes, you’ve got nirvana.

These are truly perfect as-is.  Really.  But then I started thinking.  If  willing to compromise the sandy texture just slightly, I bet they’d make fantastic sandwich cookies.

So, once I got to the part where the dough should have been rolled into a log, I just rolled it into a ball and chilled the dough.  Out of the fridge, I rolled-out the dough (between two pieces of parchment–you do not want to add extra flour) and punched out circles.  Working the dough in this way does make them less crumbly and more cookie-like.

And that’s why I added some chocolate-nutella frosting in the middle.

World peace: two ways.

World Peace Cookies

This recipe has appeared in a variety of venues.  Dorie Greenspan/Pierre Herme

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 11 tablespoons (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (I’ve used kosher with equal success)
  • 5 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate chopped into small pieces (or tiny chocolate chips)

Sift together flour, cocoa and baking soda in a medium bowl.  Set aside.  In a standing mixer or using an electric hand-held mixer, beat butter until smooth but not fluffy.  Beat in both sugars, vanilla and salt until fluffy; about 2 minutes.  With beater speed on low, add flour mixture and mix until dough just starts to form.  Switch to a spatula and fold dough a few more times until all flour is integrated.  Fold in chocolate.  Roll dough into a log (or two if you want smaller cookies).  Wrap in plastic and chill until firms, at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line baking sheets with parchment.  Using a sharp knife, cut logs crosswise into 1/2 inch-thick rounds.  Space 1-inch apart on baking sheets and bake until cookies appear dry (11-12 minutes).  Let cool.

If making sandwich cookies (a TMH variation)

Follow steps through forming a log with the dough.  Instead, form dough into a flattened ball and chill for at least 3 hours.   Once firm, roll-out dough 1/4 at a time (it will be tough to work with at first).  The chocolate bits will work as a thickness guide.  Punch-out cookies with a circular cookie cutter.  Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 9-10 minutes (less than the original because they will be cooler).

You can fill these with anything.  I just added about 4 TBS of nutella to a cup of this ganache in the pictures above (I happened to already have the ganache in the fridge).