Chocolate-Almond Spice Cookies (gluten free)

 

I was headed to a holiday cookie party and needed something gluten free.  This recipe is a riff on the Swiss cookie Basler brunsli.  The recipe halved easily, which produced 12 fairly large cookie balls.  Aside from that, the only way I deviated from the recipe as written was nearly doubling the spices (because I could barely taste them in the dry mix even before adding chocolate), using a mix of unsweetened chocolate and semi-sweet (almost 50/50, because it's what I had), and baking them on a greased, rimmed baking sheet rather than parchment on a flat cookie sheet.  I'll also mention that everything was at room temperature.

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
54 grams (¼ cup) plus 285 grams (1⅓ cups) white sugar
250 grams (2½ cups) blanched almond flour
21 grams (¼ cup) cocoa powder
½ teaspoon table salt
4 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

In a 12-inch skillet over medium, combine the almond flour and remaining spice mixture. Cook, stirring frequently and breaking up any lumps, until fragrant and lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool until barely warm to the touch, 15 to 20 minutes. 

Heat the oven to 375°F with racks in the upper- and lower-middle positions. Line 2 baking sheets with kitchen parchment.

In a small bowl, stir together the cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. Measure ¼ teaspoon of the spice mixture into another small bowl, stir in the 54 grams (¼ cup) sugar and set aside.

Once the almond flour mixture is cool, whisk in the remaining 285 grams (1⅓ cups) sugar, the cocoa and salt. Use a spatula to stir in the egg whites and vanilla until evenly moistened. Stir in the chocolate. The dough will be sticky.  Using two soup spoons, drop a few 2-tablespoon portions of dough into the spiced sugar, then gently roll to coat evenly. Arrange the sugar-coated balls on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Repeat with the remaining dough.  Bake until the cookies have cracks in their surfaces and a toothpick inserted into a cookies at the center of the baking sheets comes out with few crumbs attached, 12 to 15 minutes, switching and rotating the sheets halfway through. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

I had some questionable moments making these.  The first was knowing when the almond flour was toasted sufficiently, but I think I got it right through several tastings, the aroma, and change in color.  Then when I was measuring the cocoa powder, I first filled the volume measuring cup, but added it to the bowl while checking the weight.  I barely added half the volume before I'd met the weight quantity!  I suppose it stands to reason that different cocoa powders might have different weights per gram.  I used the weight quantity (as well as the weight quantity for the almond flour.)  Then I made the mistake of leaving my bowl of chocolate sitting on top of the oven while it preheated; when I went to add it to the dough, I found it warm and the bottom had melted.  I went ahead and mixed it in anyway, thinking it was just a small quantity, but I think the chocolate was warm enough that it dissolved into the batter.  I don't detect very many pieces (although I did chop it pretty small.)  

When scooping the dough, I wasn't sure how big to make the cookies.  "Soup spoons" can vary greatly in size, and of course there's the heaping factor.  How much to heap?  Since I was making only 12, I could quickly see that I wasn't making them nearly large enough; they should be about 1 1/2" in diameter.  I ended up jamming more dough onto the bottoms of some of the balls to end up with an even 12 that were more or less the same size.  I also nudged them a bit after sugaring to make them a little less bumpy, but I wish I'd picked them up and rolled them (gently!) between my palms to fully round them.  They didn't really change shape at all as they baked, so they ended up looking more like lumps of coal.  (Were they supposed to flatten somewhat?  It looks like it in their photos, but mine didn't.  That affects the baking time.)  The fact that you're supposed to test them with a toothpick indicates these should have some depth to them.  When I tested mine, they came out still wet inside.  I ended up adding about 5 -- 6 more minutes to the baking time before I felt safe taking them out.  (You definitely don't want to over bake these or you won't get that chewy interior.)

Because these are coated in sugar, you want to let them cool on the pan long enough to firm up a bit, but not so long that the sugar starts to harden or you won't be able to get them up.  Five minutes was a bit too long in my case.  They came up okay, but just barely.  They probably could have done with a minute less in the oven, as the bottoms were quite brown and overly chewy.  I debated about using an air-bake pan, which I use with cookies I think might burn easily (because my oven heats from the bottom), but since there was no butter I thought it would be okay just using a heavy aluminum pan and placing them on the next rung above the middle.  (Things tend to bake more slowly on an air-bake, so I use those pans with caution.)

These were a little sweet for their uncomplicated flavor.  The spices were very subtle, and the sugar crust on the outside added to the sweet impression.  They could have used more salt-- I would double it even, or at least sprinkle it on top.  Otherwise, they tasted a lot like a brownie, with a similar texture on the interior.  A little orange, tahini, chili and/or coffee would pump up the flavor as well-- pretty much any flavor that goes with chocolate-- however these additions take them further away from their inspiration to the point of being almost an entirely different cookie.

Conclusion:  I wouldn't be inclined to make these again unless I used a different flavor.  (I'm really leaning towards the coffee.)  They're so similar to a brownie, but not as good, and more work.  With more spices and more salt (and more finesse), they would be a nice chocolate addition to a cookie plate (or if you need a gluten-free option), but they're nothing to get excited about on their own.  

Recipe:   Chocolate-Almond Spice Cookies via Milk Street

Brownie mix cookies

I needed chocolate cookies.  I had brownie mix.  Here's to #covidbaking  Onward ho.

For one dozen cookies, here's what I used:

1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 of an approximately 18-ounce box of brownie mix (Duncan Hines, as it was)
1/4 cup (more or less) cocoa powder
1/4 cup (more or less) pea protein powder
1/8 teaspoon (more or less) salt (optional)
1 teaspoon molasses
1/4 cup milk (more or less), added 1 tablespoon at a time
several handfuls (maybe 1/2 cup) chopped walnuts

In a medium bowl, stir together the melted butter, egg, and vanilla extract with a fork.  Separately, sift together the dry ingredients.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, along with the molasses and stir until completely incorporated, adding enough milk to get a wet cookie batter consistency.  Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add the walnuts and stir to distribute evenly.  Drop by double tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes.  Leave to cool for a few minutes on the sheet, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

My stupid oven...  I checked the cookies at 10 minutes and they were still mounds of melting dough.  The oven was at 300.  I turned it up to 350, and checked again at 7 minutes.  They still looked suspicious, so I left them in another 3 minutes.  Then they were quite firm.  I probably should have taken them out after 7.

I liked the added salt at first, but once I'd gone through about half of them it started to seem like too much.  An option would be to leave it out of the batter, but sprinkle the tops before baking.

Conclusion:   Delicious.  Cakey.  A little dry right out of the oven, but better the next day.  They didn't flatten at all, and in fact sort of puffed up a little.  Using 1/2 an egg would make them less cakey (or 1 egg for the whole box of mix.)   Now I'm thinking of a lot of fun ways you could change these up, with peanut butter, mint, coffee, rum...

February ABC challenge: the browniest (salted) peanut butter chip cookies

 

I keep asking, "Why do we keep seeking a cookie that tastes like a brownie? Why not just make brownies?"  I still don't know.  Maybe it's a texture thing?  These chocolate chili cookies and chocolate crackle cookies were good, but no substitute for a brownie.  Anyway, here's another attempt.

I reduced the recipe to 1/4 and changed out the chocolate chips for peanut butter (EXTRA chips too), because peanut butter!  I sprinkled half of them with kosher salt to jump on the salted chocolate bandwagon (even though I'm sort of over the whole salted everything trend.  Enough already.)

For a batch of 6 cookies, here's what I used:

1/2 cup 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cup dark or light brown granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon molasses
2 tablespoons 1½ teaspoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 large egg
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, lump-free (any kind)
2/3 cup 3½ tablespoons chocolate peanut butter chips (increased from 2½)
kosher salt, optional

Melt butter and unsweetened chocolate together over low heat or in the microwave until nearly melted. Off the heat, stir until it is.  Stir sugar and molasses into butter and chocolate mixture, then the egg and vanilla, stirring to combine.  Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa, and stir into the batter until completely incorporated.  Stir in the peanut butter chips, making sure they're evenly distributed. In order to maintain the shape while baking, refrigerate the batter until firm but not stiff (about 15 minutes for this small amount.)  

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Scoop batter into about 1½- to 2-tablespoon-sized mounds and space evenly on greased baking sheets, allowing room for them to spread a little. (For a salted chocolate cookie, sprinkle lightly with kosher salt.  These can also be done as a slice-and-bake.)  Bake for 11 to 12 minutes for a fudgy center; they will look underbaked.  Allow to cool a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.
 
Conclusion:   As promised, these are very brownie-like.  Very dense, with a rich, dark chocolate taste.  The sprinkling of salt was a nice touch.  They were better after being fully cooled, as I found them somewhat gummy when still warm.  The moistness, even after cooling, made them still a little gummy; I might even have preferred them baked to a drier state.  Very good, but due to the texture, true brownies are still the winner.

Recipe:  the browniest cookies via Smitten Kitchen

Happy Halloween! Spicy Skull Brownies

I was charged with bringing a pan cookie to a Halloween party.  To make this pan of brownies more festive, I came up with this idea to create a skull face on the pan.  I made a template from an on-line image, pinned it to the brownies with toothpicks, then carefully applied a thin layer of royal icing to fill it in.  When I realized I had a "hatchet" that would add to the image, the blood naturally followed (... so to speak.)

Here's what I used (for the brownies):

1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
4 teaspoons ground ancho chile pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
9 ounces quality dark chocolate (60-72%), coarsely chopped
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into 1-inch pieces
1¼ cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
5 eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 3-quart square baking dish or a 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set aside. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, chile pepper, cinnamon, salt, and ginger; set aside. Place the chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler or a large heat-proof bowl. Set over a pan of barely simmering water (the bottom of the pan should not touch the water). Heat and stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined. Remove from heat, keeping pan or bowl over water. Add both sugars; whisk until completely combined. Remove from water. Mixture should be at room temperature. Add three eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Do not overbeat the batter or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not a whisk), fold until there is just a trace amount of flour mixture visible. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish or pan and smooth the top with your spatula. Bake the brownies for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Cool completely on a wire rack. (If desired, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons cocoa powder mixed with 1/2 teaspoon ground ancho chile pepper.)

Hmmm... as I re-read this recipe now, I thought I had increased the quantity of ancho chili because it seemed too low.  Now I'm wondering if I was looking at the 1/2 teaspoon at the end of the recipe.  I'm sure I would have thought 4 teaspoons was plenty!  If I bumped it up to 1 teaspoon, then no wonder it wasn't noticeable.  Perhaps it was the ginger I increased.  Well, this is what happens when you wait two months before writing up the blog post.

Conclusion:  I wasn't very pleased with these.  They had the somewhat chalky dryness that I think comes from too much chocolate, and weren't fudgy at all.  (I suppose I might have overbaked them, though I checked them early.)  And even with increasing the spices, the spices still weren't especially noticeable. 

Recipe:  Sweet & Spicy Brownie Bites via Better Homes and Gardens, February 2015

April ABC Challenge: Fudgy No-butter Brownies (gluten-free, dairy-free... why???)

I'm perfectly happy with buttery, gluten-loaded brownies.  But I'm up for something new...  This is called a challenge, after all.  So, gluten-free brownies, it is.

April fools?  No.  I've been reducing grains and sugar from my diet for a while now, and therefore many of the baked goods I make (like this banana bread or these almond bars) use an almond base -- either almond meal or almond butter -- to replace the wheat.  They're pretty tasty, surprisingly!  They don't go down as easily as wheat-based goods, tending to stick in throat (so no snarfing!), but there's no sacrifice in taste or texture.

These brownies are no exception.  The lack of added fat (there is some in the almond meal -- 15g in 1/4 cup versus 12g in 1 tablespoon of butter) makes them less gooey and heavy-sitting, but does not detract from their richness.  They are VERY dense -- that would be the only giveaway that there is something unique about them.

I thought about making these entirely sugar-free, but ended up just reducing the sugar quantity.  I also halved the recipe.  Changes from the half recipe are in italics and strikeout.  Here's what I used:

1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
100 g (about 1 cup) almond meal
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon espresso powder
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ large egg white
1 tablespoon water
½ tsp pure vanilla extract
2.5 oz (about 1/3 cup) best quality dark chocolate chips
¼ cup walnut pieces

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×4-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, letting it hang over the edges of pan.

Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a large mixing bowl. Add almond meal, salt, and espresso powder and stir to combine. Add whole egg, egg white, water and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. The batter will be thick. Stir in the walnuts.  Scrape batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake until a shiny crust forms and a skewer inserted into the center comes out with a few moist sticky bits, about 10-15 minutes.  Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool slightly. For neat slices, let cool completely before slicing.

These whipped up very easily -- I love one-bowl bakes.  Since there's no flour, you don't need to worry about over mixing the batter, so beat away.  My oven went a little hot, and by 15 minutes the skewer came out completely dry.  Slightly overbaked by the originator's standards, I suppose, but by no means a detraction.  (It might have caused them to rise slightly less if the egg cooked before it had time to do its magic.)

Conclusion:   Dense, very chocolatey, good.  Using half the sugar made them semi-sweet, which was still perfectly acceptable.  They were definitely better the next day, when the moisture seemed to have soaked in and melded.  There was only the slightest of powdery texture from the almonds -- if they'd been made with flour and were this dense, they'd be creamy.  If one wanted to eliminate the added sugar entirely, they could probably be made with ground up raisins or dates as a substitute.  I'll keep this recipe handy for when I want something decadent but don't want to cheat too badly.  (And I might throw in a little oil.)

Original recipe:  Fudgy No-Butter Brownies via Scientifically Sweet

January ABC Challenge: Mole-spiced Brownies with Lime Cheesecake Swirl

To be honest, I approached this month's challenge with reservation.  Once upon a time, I was the type of person  who, if the dessert menu included Death By Chocolate, I was all over it.  The richer, more decadent a dessert was, especially if it included chocolate, the better.  But at some point several years ago, chocolate started to lose its appeal (gasp!), and rich foods of any kind quickly followed suit.  Besides that, the whole chocolate-and-cheesecake thing has been done a million times.  I had to find a twist or it wasn't going to happen.

A friend recently made a sweet bread with chocolate and spiced with chili and cinnamon.  I decided to go the same route with these brownies.  Interestingly, when one doesn't have a stake in the outcome, it really opens the doors to adventure!  Once underway, I decided to go even further and add the sweet spices from traditional mole along with some tangy lime, in keeping with the Mexican flavor.  (Okay, so Chinese 5-spice isn't Mexican, but it brought the anise and cloves to the party in one easy-to-use measure.)

A chopstick  really helped to break up the
thick chocolate batter and get it swirled in.

The directions call for cooking the butter and sugar "until the mixture is smooth and shiny."  Well, it was getting pretty thick after several minutes, but it still wasn't smooth.  I took it off the heat anyway.  As it cooled, it got even thicker.  (I wonder if this affected the final texture.)  Consequently, it was something of a challenge getting it swirled into the creamy cheesecake batter.

As it turns out, these brownies were a disappointment.  For one, they confirmed a growing suspicion...  I don't like cinnamon and chocolate!  I don't know why not.  They were also extremely rich, as I knew they would be.  I think the addition of chocolate chips was overkill.  They are already so intense, even with reduced sugar, and chocolate tends to steal the show anyway, no matter what.  I would have preferred a ratio of cheesecake to chocolate of about 3:1; the recipe is closer to 1:2.

Lastly, though  many people complained that they needed much longer to cook, mine were overdone in just 35 minutes.  I had halved the recipe and used an 8x8" pan, which is larger than half of a 9x13"  pan, so I should have started checking them after 25 minutes.  They didn't burn, but were a little on the gummy side, and the cheesecake had large air pockets throughout, as if there were too much egg  or something.  (Perhaps it was the flour...  Why is there flour in the cheesecake anyway?  And did I forget to cut the flour quantity in half??)

Besides the added flavors, I reduced the sugar, increased the salt, reduced the vanilla, and omitted the chocolate chips.  Here are the ingredients I worked with for a half recipe quantity, with my changes noted:

Chocolate batter
1/2 cup unsalted butter
*3/4 cup sugar (reduced from 1 1/8 c)
5/8 cup baking cocoa
*1 teaspoon salt (increased from 1/2 t)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
*1 1/4 teaspoon ground red chili (likely New Mexico hatch)
*1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
*1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

Cream cheese batter
8-ounce package cream cheese
3/8 cup sugar
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
*1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (reduced from 1 t)
1/8 cup heavy cream
1 large egg
*zest and juice of one lime



Conclusion:  This type of item doesn't appeal to me, so I would not make it again.  The flavor combination I used was interesting; I really liked the little bit of heat from the chili, and the tangy lime was a nice contrast against the richness of the brownie.  I will definitely use the chocolate/chili/lime combination again.

Recipe:  Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies via King Arthur Flour