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I joined the Daring Bakers this month and this is my first baking challenge. The idea is each month a host or hostess nominates a particular recipe and everyone has to do it. I was hoping that it would push me to bake outside my comfort zone and it did – I’d never tried doing tuiles and who knows if I ever would have in the future. But thanks to the daring bakers, I have now and in chocolate butterfly form to boot!

This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Here are all my little butterflies waiting for something nice to land on…

One little butterfly has found some raspberry ice cream – mmmmmmmm….

I used the “The Chocolate Book” recipe, “written by female Dutch Master chef Angélique Schmeinck”.

Recipe:
Yields: 20 small butterflies/6 large (butterflies are just an example)
Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

65 grams / ¼ cup / 2.3 ounces softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams / ½ cup / 2.1 ounces sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams / ½ cup / 2.3 ounces sifted all purpose flour
1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 180C / 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the bakingsheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly.

Bake butterflies in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from bakingsheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again. (Haven’t tried that). Or: place a bakingsheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.

If you don’t want to do stencil shapes, you might want to transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tip. Pipe the desired shapes and bake. Shape immediately after baking using for instance a rolling pin, a broom handle, cups, cones….

I’m participating in a Virtual Cookie Exchange organised by Notes from a Cottage Industry. The idea is to do an online bake swap for ideas for yummy Christmas treats. Last weekend I tried out a new recipe for Ginger Crunch from Jason Robert’s Graze and it went down very well (though you DO have to like ginger). I added some chopped crystallised ginger to the icing to make it even more gingery. I think it makes a nice alternative (or addition) to gingerbread so it’s my contribution to the bake swap!

To Christmas it up a bit, instead of cutting it into squares, you can use festive cookie cutters to shape them into Gingerbread men (I’d suggest pre-cutting them before putting on the icing and then cutting them out again after the icing has set).

Ginger Crunch Slice

(note these are Australian metric measurements – here’s a converter if you need it!)

The Crunch Part:

• 250g softened butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• a pinch of salt

The Icing Part:

• 1 cup sifted icing sugar
• 60g butter
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 1/3 cup crystallised (or candied) ginger, chopped finely

Line a 20×30cm (approx 8″x12″) baking tin with baking paper.

Preheat your oven to 180C (356F). (I did the following all in my stand mixer) Cream the butter and sugar until they are white and fluffy. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt until well combined. It should be thick and sticky.

Press the mixture into the tin so that it is spread out evenly. Let it bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

While the crunch part is happily baking away, mix up the icing. In a saucepan over a low-med heat, melt all the icing ingredients and heat for a further two minutes. Pour over the crunch part while it’s still warn.

Slice into squares (or experiment with cutting it into Christmas shapes!).

Merry Christmas everyone!

A while ago, I was salivating at thought of trying out Heidi Swanson’s Mesquite Chocolate Chips.

Mesquite is a rare but apparently very healthy and tasty flour. I managed to find a supplier in Australia but it was very pricey. I got this nice comment from Peter Felker:

Good day I’m a partner in the USDA organic, Kosher production of mesquite flour in Argentina and in the USA. You can buy it from our web site for $9 for a 1 lb bag or you can order it bulk at much lower price. I would love to help you find a store in your area to carry it. Would you be kind enough to suggest a store close to you that we could contact.

I passed on a few stores to him so fingers crossed! I think I’ll also send an email to my food coop when they are back from holidays. Even at $9 for 1lb, it’s less than half the price!

I made an incredible but extremely time consuming and messy gingerbread as Christmas gifts last year (Jamie Oliver’s from his COOK with Jamie). I also made chocolate chip cookies but found them a little boring. This year I wanted something simple, I wanted it gingery but also wanted something chocolate-y so I thought why not combine the two? So I asked my friend Google and after providing a ton of recipes with crystalised ginger (I had none), he produced this stunner from Sunset magazine.

The original recipe called for molasses, but my pantry only had golden syrup but the substitution worked perfectly well. It also asked for bittersweet chocolate but I used milk which allows the ginger and spice to shine a little better. I didn’t have any sugar that wasn’t icing or caster, both of which would have melted, so I skipped that step. I also made them chunky – the original recipe wanted a size and thickness that was more akin to a ginger snap. Cookie batter is flexible, just go with whatever you feel like.

I think they are best warm so the chocolate chip cookie melts all over the place.

3/4 cup unsalted butter (I used about 190g)
2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground nutmeg (used the pre-ground variety – it was fine)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
230g chocolate chips
1/3 cup granulated sugar (I’d use something like demerara sugar)

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

Sift flour, cocoa, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt into a bowl. Mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl cream the butter and the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the golden syrup, egg and vanilla. Add the sifted dry ingredients until well combined. Stir through the chocolate chips.

Form batter into balls. If you wish you can roll each in the sugar. Space evenly on the baking paper. Flatten the balls to the desired thickness (1″ – 1/4″) using the back of a spoon or the base of glass (water will help stop the batter from sticking).

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes depending on thickness and how gooey you want them to be. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a flexible dough. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

And Merry Christmas!

David Lebovitz in his fabulous blog tries out Heidi Swanson’s Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies which were a bit of a secret themselves and now more so that she’s taken it off her blog because it was revised for her new book and doesn’t want people to become confused(?!). Fortunately, David has still got his variation online.

Mesquite flour is supposed to be a bit of a wonder flour, low-GI and full of flavour and fibre. It’s not the easiest to find, but there is one source in Australia: Raw Pleasure stocks it for $22.95 for 500g – it’s also not cheap! Heidi also raves about Alter Ego organic ground cane sugar – I found an Australian source, but I will have to do some more investigation to see if I can find a locally produced equivalent.

I am very tempted to fork out the dough (no pun intended or avoided) to try out the mesquite flour, but as far as regular chocolate chip cookies go, I was pretty happy with the results from my standby chocolate chip recipe. While it is obvious to say that it all starts with a good recipe, are there any special tips not included in the standard text that make the difference between good and great?

My secret would be to keep an eye on how they are going and under-cook them slightly to give that soft chewy Mrs Field’s texture (if that’s what you’re into, if you like them crispy – and yes, that can be very good too – you might need to go with a different recipe or spread them out thinner) -  don’t wait until they’re brown all over, golden brown and brown on the edges is just right.

I find that’s enough but it seems there are a whole lot more secrets out there to that yummy cookie texture…

David gave up his secret to perfectly moist chocolate chip cookies:

Here’s a tip to help keep chocolate chip cookies moist when they cool: When you pull the cookies out of the oven, take a tablespoon and tap the top of each cookie once or twice to flatten any peaks and level them. Then let them cool as usual for the moistest, chewiest chocolate chip cookies imaginable!

In David’s comments, suzanne has another secret:

Another tip for keeping the cookies moist is to add an extra egg yolk (or, if there are 2 or more eggs called for, eliminate the whites from one of the eggs in the recipe).

Then you can use the extra egg white in David’s Banana Cake! [I thinks she is talking about this banana cake recipe, but there's also this healthy one and this decadent chocolate one.]

He also links to Adam’s tips/cookie tricks who also mentions under-cooking (which I think is more to the point):

• Use a flat baking sheet with no sides for perfect even cooking or turn a baking tray with sides upside down and place baking paper on the base so that it effectively loses its sides.
• Use an ice-cream scoop to dole out the batter and flatten them with a wet hand.

David had some tips a while back on how to keep cookies from spreading (though this can sometimes be the intended result – see this video for cookie slice. I actually quite like the spread myself where the cookies squish on the sides and get wrinkles similar to what someone described in Adam’s blog as the “shar pei” effect. I will try out the strong flour tip though – I do like chewy):

• Don’t whip cookie mixture – only beat the butter and sugar long enough so they’re blended well but not fluffy.
• Don’t butter baking sheets, just line them with parchment/baking paper or use a non-stick silicone baking mat
• Use stronger flour – one that’s higher in protein. This is the opposite of a cake flour. Sometimes stronger flours are called pasta flour as the chewy stretchy-ness is what you need for good pasta – the complete opposite of what you need for a light and airy sponge. I think the Italian type 00 flour is this from memory (but do check!). Strong flour is especially recommended for cut-out biscuits where you want them to hold their shape.
• Avoid super fine sugars. I guess this is castor sugar. His reasoning is they melt too quickly and cause the dough to be wet and spread.
• Chill/Freeze the dough beforehand.
• Check the temperature of your oven is not to too low. Otherwise it will prolong the spread time!

Some more cookie recipes (and a stray brownie one) I found writing this:
Adam’s Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Stewart* (mel recommended sprinkling sugar on top before baking as a cheat).
Alton Brown’s Chewy Cookies (using bread flour – ie a strong high protein flour, sometimes known as pasta flour).
Cook’s Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies: subscription only but try Recipe Czar or this cookie Google group.
A whole lot linked at “Ahh, the Chocolate Chip Cookie“
Cook’s Illustrated Thin, Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies: subscription only (boo!).
Sunset Magazine “Seeking the perfect chocolate chip cookie“.
Neiman Marcus – Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (and the also the recipe from that stupid email urban legend)
Original Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Meg Hourihan’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Search and her subsequent findings.
Words to eat by’s Unbelievably Good Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
Karol’s Comfort Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (she also has some healthier food – after seeing so many sugary cookies (and having brownies for breakfast), I have to admit her Guacamole recipe and her detox soup are looking pretty damn fine).
David Lebovitz tries out Clotilde’s Very Chocolate Cookies.
Foodbeam’s Rage syndrome inducing Pierre Hermé’s sablés au chocolat et à la fleur de sel.
Heidi Swanson trying out David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Chip Recipe.

And the brownie recipe, Trial and Error’s Dark Chocolate Brownies.

It’s like going down the white rabbit’s tunnel… So many chocolate chip recipes, so little time and so few arteries to ruin!

*ie Martha, the boyfriend and I call her this because of a typo in a newspaper article on her release from jail, since she has always been know as The Stewart.

I made Chocolate Chip Biscuits/Cookies just before Christmas and felt super domestic goddessy when last week I grabbed some left overs frozen in a roll and had a tray of cookies ready in under 15 minutes. Unfortunately, I’m still addicted to them so I had to make them again. Cake Tuesday ended up being Cake Monday this week because I couldn’t wait. I used the simplest recipe I found on the internet (here), I was surprised how many bizarre chocolate chip biscuit/cookie recipes there are in the world (including one with peanut butter, wouldn’t that be a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie then? I’m just a purist). Anyway, enough rambling, here it is:

• 2-1/4 cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 250 gm butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar (I used brown caster sugar because that’s what I had)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chocolate bits

Preheat oven (190C). Mix the plain flour and bicarb in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugars and vanilla until fully mixed. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then gradually add the flour. Fold in chocolate bits. Drop blobs of cookie dough on greased trays and bake for 10-12 minutes. I tend to prefer them soft on the inside so I pull them out when they are golden rather than golden brown.

If you make too much, the dough freezes really well, it’s easiest if you freeze them in rolls wrapped in baking paper, you can then slice off pieces and bake until golden/golden brown.

Oh I almost forgot, here’s a picture of them with vanilla ice cream, a very tasty combination.