Clara, a good friend of mine from Spain, told me last time we met that she had tried this recipe (spanish only) but that she had swapped the chocolate chip cookies with nutella, and the results were amazing. She also told me that she had changed the method a bit to fill the cookies with the nutella instead of making a swirl or coating them with it. My cookies were not as good looking as hers but they were amazing too ^^ The trick appears to be to be generous with the nutella ;-)
This recipe yielded 16 cookies as they taste better if they're not too big.
Clara's cookies:
Ingredients:
100g brown sugar 40g white sugar 110g unsalted butter at room temperature 230g plain flour 1 egg 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence Nutella at room temperature Method:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Beat together the sugars with the softened butter till well mixed. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat again until you have an homogeneus paste.
In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
Slowly add the flour to the butter mixture until well combined.
Wrap the dough with cling film and let it chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it till it's around 5mm thick. With a cookie cutter, or something similar, cut round shapes from it. Gather the scraps of dough together, roll it again and cut additional cookies out.
Fill the cut out cookies with a teaspoon of nutella each and close them over it.
Bake in the preheated oven for 8-12 minutes till they are light brown (be careful not to overbake them).
Remove he cookies from the pan and let them cool on a wire rack before storing them in an air tight container.
(Sorry for the quality of the photo, I couldn't find my camera and had to take it with my phone).
Last year I discovered The Great British Bake Off thanks to a coworker and I've been looking forward to this year's edition ever since I finished watching all the seasons I missed. Now, every Wednesday, you can see me drooling in front of my TV and also eating something sweet to cope with all the longing for cakes and tarts and pies and...well, everything baked, that I get after watching all those gorgeous creations made by amateur bakers (not that I'm surprised that somebody can be so good without being a pro after following dailydelicious for so many years). In this state of mind I decided yesterday to bake some cupcakes so that I had something to go with the program ^^ The chosen ones were these cupcakes from Happy Flour basically because I already had all the ingredients except for the chocolate rice, that I substituted with milk chocolate chips.
This recipe yielded 8 cupcakes but between my boyfriend and I none were left this morning ^^U The cupcakes were really tasty and we specially liked the way the yogurt flavour mixed with the chocolate.
Chocolate chip yogurt cupcakes:
Ingredients:
60g white sugar 40g unsalted butter 110g all purpose flour 110g plain yogurt 1 egg 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence 60g milk chocolate chips Method:
Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder together and set aside.
In another bowl, cream butter, salt and sugar until light and fluffy.
Slowly beat into the butter mixture the egg and the vanilla essence until well combined.
Fold in flour and yogurt alternately until well combined.
Finally add the chocolate chips.
Line a muffin tin with paper casing and spoon batter into it until 70% full.
Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden.
Remove he cupcakes from the tin and let them cool on a wire rack.
As soon as I saw this post I knew that I HAD to try this recipe but for some reason or another I have postponing the moment. The main reason was that I was kind of unsure about making cookies with such a huge amount of sugar. I finally settled that it was best to do only half of the recipe and to cut down the sugar being used.
The original recipe calls for dark brown sugar but I didn't have any of it and instead I had a package of muscovado sugar therefore I substituted it. Another change that I made has to do with the number of layers, even though the original recipe states that 3 layers of cookie shall be made (with chocolate between them), due to the amount of dough that results from making only half of the recipe I only used 2 layers (it was like a cookie sandwich). The last change has to do with the type of the chocolate: the original recipe uses semisweet or bittersweet chocolate but I used milk chocolate (which I prefer).
The resulting cookies were a bit too greasy but delicious anyway. Next time I'll be cuting down the amount of butter to 100g to seen how the come out.
Ingredients:
140 g all-purpose flour 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon salt 115g butter, at room temperature 75g muscovado sugar 50g granulated sugar 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 85g milk chocolate, chopped into shards Method:
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
In another bowl, cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Then, add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating until combined and then add the vanilla.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating just until incorporated.
Divide the dough into two equal portions and shape each into a ball. Then wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Unwrap the dough and place one on a lightly floured work surface. Shape the balls into equal rectangles (don't make them too thin, its better if they're thick). Sprinkle the chocolate evenly over one of the rectangles and top with the second piece of dough. Dust the top piece of dough lightly with flour, then use a rolling pin to gently roll the stack of dough and chocolate into a 4cm thick rectangle. Use a round cutter to cut as many rounds as possible from the dough and transfer the rounds to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps of dough together into a 4cm thick mound and cut additional cookies out (most of my cookies were made from these scraps as I only managed to get 5 cookies in my first cut).
Cover the baking sheet loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate the
unbaked cookies for at least an hour. The original recipe states that the more time they spend in the fridge the better they taste when baked but I couldn't wait so I juste left them an hour.
Preheat oven to 190ºC. If you're going to bake all of the cookies at once, separate them onto a few baking sheets, leaving at least 5cm between them because they'll spread a lot.
Bake for 14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are set (rotating the baking sheets halfway through if you're baking more than one sheet of cookies). The centers will still seem really soft and underbaked but they'll set up as they cool. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes before removing them to the racks to cool completely.
Actually, I made this cake last year but I completely forgot to upload the recipe -_-U
This recipe used A LOT of eggs so its packed with calories (yummy calories ^^). The cake had a very rich flavour and an airy and soft consistency that I loved. The original is here and uses Frangelico but I ommited it because I don't drink alcohol and my parents don't drink this tipe of liquor so I didn't want to buy a bottle just for the cake. Also, this recipe was enough to fill a round 22cm cake pan and a rectangular 15cm large bread pan so next time I'll be doing half of it.
Ingredients:
120g unsweetened chocolate, chopped 150g unsalted butter, cubed 7 eggs, seperated yolks and whites 170g caster sugar 1 pinch of salt Method:
Preheat the oven at 150ºC. Line the base of a 22cm springform baking pan with aluminium foil, grease the pan well with butter and set aside.
In a medium saucepan, whisk the chocolate and butter together over low heat until a smooth mixture forms. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.
In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Add 110g of sugar to the yolks, whisking well until the mixture turns thick and pale yellow. Gradually add the cooled chocolate mixture to the yolks mixture, whisking until combined.
Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg whites together with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 60g of sugar and beat the egg whites till they hold their shape but are not dry.
Fold the egg whites in three batches into the yolk mixture only until just combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour before lowering the oven temperature to 120ºC and baking for an additional 30 minutes. When the cake is done baking, turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven to cool, leaving the oven door slightly ajar until the cake comes to room temperature.
These cookies were originally a variation of someones I made some time ago (the chocolate and walnut cookies). The recipe is also for chocolate and walnut cookies, only that it comes from a different cookbook. This recipe is from Chocolate Basics: 80 Recipes Step-by-step (in spanish Recetas básicas de chocolate). I simply LOVE this book! It's got step by step photographs and explanations, which makes the recipes look less scary :-) Indeed, I find myself willing to attemp some layered cakes, which is something I usually don't dare to even give a second glare.
I made these cookies for my boyfriend's birthday, as one of his presents, because he loves the cookies this way, chewy rather than crunchy (I prefer them the other way ^^U). These cookies taste really good and are super easy to make, just as they seem in my book!
Ingredients:
200g white sugar 100g butter 150g chocolate with almonds 220g all-purpose flour 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 salt Method:
Preheat oven to 170ºC.
In a saucepan, melt butter and let it warm.
Add the sugar and the salt to the butter mix until well combined.
Mix in the egg and then the vanilla extract until well combined.
In a bowl, mix the flour and the baking powder and the add the flour to the butter.
Chop the chocolate and add it to the dough.
Let the dough rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Take a small amount of cookie dough onto your palm and roll into a ball.
Put the balls onto a baking tray and press them slightly.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until the borders brown.
Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack.
The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!
First of all, things keep going as I mentioned last February, wich means that my job is still like hell T_T At least it looks like this situation is coming to an end (because so does the project). Thus I'm leaving the chatting till then and I'm making this post in a hurry -_-U
I admit that I didn't embrace this challege as much as I should, partly because the maple syrup is very expensive in here and partly because I'm quite tired when I get home to be in the mood for making mousse.
I made the edible containers with chocolate, following the instructions of this web. They were kind of a mess because some of the balloons were so glued to the chocolate that I almost broke the vessels.
Here come the recipe of the Maple Mousse:
Ingredients:
240ml pure maple syrup 4 large egg yolks 1 tablespoon unflavoured gelatine 360ml whipping cream Method:
Bring maple syrup to a boil and then remove from heat.
In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, and stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved.
Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.
Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.
Well, first of all, sorry for the poor quality of the photo and the (more than usual) lousy presentation of the cookies -_-U
I meant to give away some of the cookies to friends (and to boyfriend) and to store the very few that were left in a cookie box but, unfortunately, my parents found them and ate them before I had time to take a more decent picture of them T_T
Indeed, this picture was taken with my mobile phone after I packed the cookies that I were going to be given away and before I remembered to store the leftovers. Well, I suppose that's good because it means that they liked them (but I liked them too and I wished I had some more T_T).
This is another recipe (yes, again) from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó). The original recipe from the book calls for 2 teaspoons of nutella, but I used 1 tablespoon in order to get more flavour. And I changed again the amount of sugar that the recipe states, using 50g instead of 75g. Also, I don't know if it's because I used more nutella thant I was told to, but I had to increase the temperature of the oven and the baking time: the original recipe says that 160º degrees Celsius and 10-12 minutes are enough, but I needed 180ºC and 15 minutes to get my cookies done.
Mix in the vanilla extract until well combined. Then add the flour and work the mixture until you have an elastic dough.
Divide the dough into two parts and add to one of the parts the cocoa powder and the nutella. Mix until well combined.
Extend, with a rolling pin, each dough in a floured surface until you get two rectangles, about 15x20 cm each. If the doughs are not hard enough let them rest in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
Put the nutella dough on the plain dough and press lightly. Trim the edges and fold it, just like a swiss roll.
Let the roll rest in the fridge for half an hour. Then cut it in slices of about 6cm each and put them well separated in the baking pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they sighly brown.
Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack. You can keep them for a week in an air-tight container.
This time of the year I see lots of food bloggers experiencing with pumpkins in the most various ways: cookies, cakes, tarts, cheesecakes... But around here we're not big fans of vegetables in our desserts (some restaurants and cafes are trying to introduce the carrot cake with poor results -_-U), not to talk that I've got food intolerance to the family of the Cucurbitaceae (pumpkin, cucumber, melon, watermelon...) so I'll be sticking to chocolate ^^
This is another recipe from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó). The original recipe from the book calls for dark chocolate and milk chocolate chip, but I went for milk chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate because I prefer them. This time I changed too the amount of sugar that the recipe states, using 100g instead of 150g.
The cookies are very good, my parents and my boyfriend said they're awesome, but I still prefer the chocolate and walnut cookies ^^
So, the recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
150g butter (at room temperature) 1 large egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 100g white sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 200g all-purpose flour 50g milk chocolate chunks or chips 50g white chocolate chunks or chips Method:
Preheat oven to 180ºC.
Cream butter and sugar (add the sugar little by little) until light and fluffy.
Mix in the egg and then the vanilla extract until well combined.
In another bowl, mix together the flour and the baking powder and incorporate them to the butter.
Add the chocolate chips and mix well.
Take about a tablespoon of cookie dough and put it onto a baking tray. Repeat until you've got about 6 cookies on the tray (be careful when placing the dough because the cookies will double their size when baked).
Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they brown.
Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack. You can keep them for a week in an air-tight container.
Yesterday I decided to give a try to these cookies because I still have in my pantry some of the walnuts that I bought for the Banana walnut cake.
I love these cookies, they're delicious! I couldn't stop eating them and was not at all willing to give some away to my boyfriend but, well, they were meant to be for him so I had already told him that I was making them...
This recipe comes from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó) wich was a present from my boyfriend for my last birdthday. The original recipe from the book uses white chocolate and pecans but, as I've said, I had walnuts instead, so I went on with them and my boyfriend prefers milk chocolate rather than white chocolate so I used that one. Another thing that I changed, apart from making half the ammount stated in the recipe, was the huge cuantity of sugar that it called for (in the original recipe it was 120g brown sugar and 150g white sugar) which doesn't suit our taste and scares the hell out of us thinking how our teeth are going to fall down if we dare to take a bit. So, the recipe is as follows:
I know I didn't say that I was going on holidays, but it's because I didn't plan it.
Well, I did plan the holidays from work, but I didn't plan the blogging holidays. That's because I felt soooooo lazy that I didn't want to bake anything, therefore I had nothing to show. It felt good being on holidays and it feels horrible going back to work, but I suppose I'm left with no other alternative T_T
So, lets focus on the cookies: this isn't the first time that I bake this cookies, but it's the first time that I bake them not following the original recipe step by step.
A friend of mine gave me this recipe a year ago and I tried it inmediatly, but the cookies were too sweet for me and thus I decided that I was going to make them again but with some modifications. But I eventually forgot about doing that. Till now. Yesterday, while browsing through some old papers, I found the recipe and decided to try it again. Fortunately I wrote down last time the modifications that I wanted to do next time! Basicaly, I've cut down by half the amount of sugar and double the amount of vanila extract and baking powder (last time I thought the were a bit "hard" -_-U).
I prefer them now, they are not as dry as last time and you can taste better the chocolate flavour.
So, here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
60g of butter 1 box of Nestle's chocolate fondue or 250g of cooking chocolate 50g of white granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 tsp of vanilla 210g of flour 1 tsp of baking powder 1 pinch of salt (Optional)confectioners' sugar for dusting Method:
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave.
Add the butter and let it cool sighly.
In a bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar and the eggs until it doubles it's size.
Add the chocolate and the vanila extract to the egg mixture and whisk until well combined.
Measure the flour into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well.
With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture.
Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let it cool in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Take the bowl out of the fridge and, with your hands, take a small amount of dough, roll it into a ball shape and put it in a baking sheet. Here you can roll the balls in confectioners' sugar to give them a white coating. I ommited this step because I think that the cookies taste too sweet if I do it.
Bake in the pre-heated oven at 180ºC for about 10 minutes.
Transfer from oven to a wire rack and let them cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.
Sorry for posting this challenge a day later, but my usual lazyness prevents me from writing and programming the post ahead of the posting date, thus and because I had an unexpectedly busy sunday, I've ended up doing it in a hurry today. Indeed, everything in this month's challenge has been made in a hurry -_-U
I made the Mascarpone Cream last friday after coming from a visit to my grandma's home and before dinner (in Spain dinner is eaten at around 9 o'clock in the evening), while the chocolate pavlovas were in the oven. So, that means: I came house from work at lunchtime (3 o'clock, and no, that's not very late; lunch is eaten here between 2-3:30 in the afternoon, and don't expect to be served in any restaurant before 1:30 ^^), ate lunch and went to grandma's (4:30 in the afternoon), came back home (around 7:00) and got ready to make the mentioned above before 9:00 to be able to help with dinner. Buffff! So tiring!
Unfortunately, I overbaked the pavlovas and they went to the bin T_T The recipe states that they need 2-3 hours baking, but after 45 minutes they were already wasted! I had to redo the pavlovas the next morning, but this time I baked them for 25 minutes, which proved to be enough for me.
On saturday morning I made the chocolate and mascarpone mousse too, to have everything ready before lunch because I wanted to serve it for dessert.
I made one third of the recipes because I thought that the ammounts were going to be too much for my parents and me, therefore, I'm posting the ammounts I used.
The recipe:
Ingredients for the Crème Anglaise (a component of the Mascarpone Cream):
80 ml whole milk 80 ml heavy cream 25g sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 2 large egg yolks Method for the vanilla Crème Anglaise:
In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow.
Combine the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan over medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat.
Pour about half of the hot liquid into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to keep from making scrambled eggs.
Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and put the heat back on medium. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. DO NOT OVERCOOK.
Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours or overnight (as the ammount of cream I made was only one thirth of the original I only had it in the fridge for half an hour before using it).
Ingredients for the Mascarpone Cream:
1 recipe crème anglaise 40g mascarpone 40 ml heavy cream Method for the Mascarpone Cream:
Slowly whisk the mascarpone in the crème anglaise and let the mixture cool.
Put the heavy cream in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until very soft peaks are formed.
Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture.
Ingredients for the Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova):
1 large egg white 35g white granulated sugar 10g confectioner’s (icing) sugar 10g cocoa powder Method for the Chocolate Meringue:
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 95ºC. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
Put the egg white in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form (the egg white should be firm but moist).
Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg white and fold the dry ingredients into the white (this looks like it will not happen, but keep folding gently and it will eventually come together).
Shape the meringues on the parchment paper and level them a bit with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the meringues become dry and crisp on the outside but still moist inside.
Ingredients for the Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (for the top of the Pavlova base):
120 ml heavy cream 85g 72% chocolate, chopped (I used Lindt's) 130g mascarpone Method for the Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse:
Put 40 ml of the heavy cream in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
Place the mascarpone and the remaining cream in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose and then whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK).
Mix about 1/4 of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten.
Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated.
Fill a pastry bag with the mousse.
Method for assembling:
Pipe the mousse onto the pavlovas and drizzle with the mascarpone cream over the top (or under, or aside, or however you prefer). Dust with confectioner’s sugar and fresh fruit if desired.
Well, after all I can say that it was worth the effort, even though the results were not the best possible because I, as said previously, made them in a hurry.
A friend of mine gave me this recipe two weeks ago telling me that it was really good, so, of course, I had to see it for myself ;-) Well, she was right! These brownies are moist and fudgy and they flew away really fast. Well, to honor the truth I made a mistake with the butter in the first batch of brownies: I don't know why, but I was sure that 6 tablespoons = 1 cup (ouch!), and thus, the brownies were too greasy and once cooled(we weren't going to eat them right then) they had tiny lumps of butter. In the second batch I added the right amount of butter, so they turned out right.
Ingredients:
6 tblsp/100g of butter 55g of cooking chocolate (I used 100g because I'm a chocolate addict) 1 cup/200g of white sugar 2 large eggs 1/2 tsp of vanilla 3/4 cup/105g of flour (I used 1 cup/140g because of the chocolate) 1/2 tsp of baking powder 1/4 tsp of salt Method:
Preheat the oven to 325ºF/170ºC.
Grease an 8-inch square baking tin.
In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate,stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and let cool.
With a whisk, beat in the sugar and vanilla.
Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir flour, measure into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well.
With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the first mixture.
Spoon into the prepared tin and spread evenly.
Bake in the pre-heated oven at 170ºC for about 25 minutes.
This morning I wanted to bake something with chocolate, but I wasn't sure of what I could do because the shops are closed. So it had to be something that required cocoa powder, as I don't have any chocolate at home. Fortunately, after going through a few of my 'to-do' recipes I found this one from The Food Librarian. It calls for a Mocha icing, but I used plain sugar instead because the chocolate chips were the bitter chocolate ones, so the resulting cake is not sweet enough (I used A LOT of chocolate chips XD). Anyways, it's really good! very chocolatey and soft, with a nice coffee aftertaste.
It looks tiny because I only made it with HALF of the amounts, as I don't want the cake to go too dry after 2 days standing in the fridge (my parents are advised to not eat much sugar, sooooo...).
