Tuesday 29 January 2013
chocolate truffle swirl cookies
Been feeling rather uninspired and lacklustre of late, which unfortunately has translated into increasingly poor photography. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon.
In other news, I have been wanting to try out this chocolate chip cookie recipe since I first chanced upon Kathryn's blog. I've been in awe of Heston Blumenthal since watching the first episode of Heston's Feasts. And having been fortunate enough to snag a table at The Fat Duck last June, I'm thoroughly convinced the man is a genius. While I'll definitely never be able to recreate his amazing dishes, this chocolate chip cookie recipe seemed manageable enough. (Though I'm sure his end-result looked and tasted a million times better.)
Technically it's a chocolate chip cookie made with bits of chocolate truffle. Unfortunately, mine turned out to be chocolate swirls rather than chips, hence the re-christening. I guess I should have anticipated the weather might be an issue and chilled the ganache for longer.
The last time I baked cookies was about 2 years(?!) ago so I had some difficulty gauging the doneness. Baked these in 3 batches and every batch turned out different. While you can't possibly use the skewer method like for cupcakes, I've learnt that, like cupcakes, you can tell they are done by the sudden burst of aroma issuing forth from the oven. Pretty intriguing stuff.
When baked evenly through (i.e. golden brown), these cookies are nice and crisp. Kind of like the Famous Amos sort. I preferred my cookie to be slightly undercooked (i.e. a little pale in the middle), such that it's crisp around the edges but soft and chewy in the middle. I liked that the little swirls of truffle gave the cookies a pleasant hint of bitterness (I used 70% dark chocolate).
Chocolate Truffle Swirl Cookies -- makes ~35 (6cm-diameter) cookies
(adapted from Kathryn's Heston's Chocolate Chip Cookies)
Chocolate Truffles:
Ingredients
10g light corn syrup
70g whipping cream
65g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa)
pinch of salt
Directions
- Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside.
- In a separate saucepan, pour in whipping cream and corn syrup and bring to a boil.
- Take off the heat, add salt, and pour cream mixture into the melted chocolate, 1/3 at a time, stirring well.
- Leave to cool to room temperature then pour onto a tray/baking sheet lined with baking paper
- Freeze for 4h (or overnight if you're from my sunny island).
- Remove from freezer and and cut into small pieces. Put back into the freezer until required.
Cookies:
Ingredients
220g plain flour, sifted
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
5g salt
¼ tsp instant coffee
115g unsalted butter, cubed and kept cold
250g caster sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla pod (scrape out the seeds and discard the pod)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 190˚C.
- Using a whisk attachment, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla seeds and continue whisking
- Change to paddle attachment, add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and coffee and mix well.
- Gently stir in the frozen chocolate chips with a spatula/wooden spoon until well distributed.
- Using a melon ball scoop, place small balls of dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. The balls of dough should be spaced well apart (leave a radius of at least twice the diameter of the dough).
- Bake for about 15min until edges are golden brown (or until all the pale cookie bits turn golden brown, if you like them more cooked)
- Leave to cool on the baking tray. The cookies should start to harden as they cool.
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