Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Crackle Cookies

31 Mar 2010 2 Comments

by Umm Ibrahim in Chocolate, Cookies, Desserts, Recipe review Tags: Baking, Chocolate, Cookies, Martha Stewart, Recipes

The kids and I really love chocolate chip cookies but it does get boring making the same thing time and time again even if I do try different recipes on the same theme. I’ve been experimenting a bit lately with chocolate chip cookie recipes  in a quest to find ‘the’ perfect recipe however I felt the need for a change today. The only requirement was that it had to contain chocolate.

I found this recipe on the Martha Stewart website and the method (whipping the ingredients) looked intriguing so I decided to go for it. The yield of 48 cookies was good considering the amount of all the ingredients – I normally use around that amount of chocolate and get only 2 dozen cookies. The dough was delicious even before being baked- it had a wonderful truffle texture and rich chocolate taste. Looking at the dough, you would never imagine how light the cookies would become after baking; not heavy at all. They looked quite unassuming on the tray going into the oven but transformed in those short 12 minutes baking time. Lightly crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.

Recipe verbatim from the Martha Stewart website:

Ingredients

Makes about 4 dozen

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate)
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for rolling (I used 1 cup caster sugar and about 1/2 cup icing sugar. First dipped them in the caster sugar and made the shape more precise then quickly coated in the icing sugar)

1. Melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, or the top of a double boiler, over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool. Into a small bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and light-brown sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add melted chocolate. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk. Mix on low speed until just combined. Divide dough into quarters, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator until firm, about 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. On a surface dusted with confectioners’ sugar, use your hands to roll each portion of dough into a log 16 inches in length and about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap logs in plastic wrap, and transfer to a baking sheet. Chill for 30 minutes. Cut each log into 1-inch pieces, and toss pieces in confectioners’ sugar, a few at a time. Using your hands, roll the pieces into balls. If any of the cocoa-colored dough is visible, roll dough in confectioners’ sugar again to coat completely. Place cookies on prepared baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies have flattened and sugar splits, 12 to 15 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

I used 100g of Nestle Gold Noir 70% de Cacao and 100g of Hershey milk chocolate chips – I didn’t want the cookies to be too rich for the children>>

 I beat the mixture with a handheld electric whisk and you can see here how truffley the mixture became>>

Coated in sugar and icing sugar ready for the oven. At step 2 and 3 I didn’t bother to roll into logs, I just put the bowl of dough into the fridge for an hour or so and then used a teaspoon to scoop heaped teaspoon sized amounts into a bowl of caster sugar and shaped into flat rounds and then coated in icing sugar. The caster sugar helped to make the exterior a little crunchier. I wasn’t too exact about coating them, a quick dip in the icing sugar was enough. I got exactly 48 from my mixture. I didn’t refrigerate a second time before baking – I was too impatient!

 Beautifully crackled and ready to eat. 9 year old compares them to brownie cookies. A bit more effort than usual but so worth it!