Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate dough. Chocolate chips. Just chocolate.

These cookies are rich and chewy, and completely decadent. Plus, you can make the dough in advance,  refrigerate or freeze it, and bake the cookies when you need them. Perfect for holiday gifts, right?

The dough for these cookies is formed into a log, refrigerated or frozen depending on your timeline, and then sliced and baked. You will need to place the cookies two inches apart on your baking sheet, because the dough will spread quite a bit.

I used a mix of mini semi sweet and large bittersweet chocolate chips in these cookies. This dough could easily lend itself to other combinations and flavors.

Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

155 g unbleached all purpose flour (about 1 1/4 C)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C room temperature unsalted butter

100 g light brown sugar (1/2 C firmly packed)

6 T granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

4 T Dutch process cocoa powder, sifted through a strainer

170 grams bittersweet chocolate chips

170 grams semisweet mini chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the butter and sugar on medium speed for about a minute. 
3. Add the egg and vanilla and mix for another minute. 
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture and mix for another minute. 
5. Add the cocoa powder and mix until just incorporated. 
6. Add the chips and mix briefly until mixed in. 
7. Divide the dough in two and form into two 9 inch long logs and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight. 
8. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 
9. Slice each log into 16 pieces and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. 
10. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for about 14 minutes.
11. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely. 
12. Keep in an air tight container for up to four days. 

Pandoro

I have wanted to make Pandoro bread ever since I saw this post on Wild Yeast. I had been having great success with a panettone recipe, and that Pandoro sounded like a great challenge.

Bloodhound Cocktail

Isn't this Bloodhound Cocktail pretty? I found it in an old out of print Williams-Sonoma Bar Guide and just had to try it. It is gin based, and contains both white and red vermouth plus a small amount of strawberry jam puree.

Frozen pureed jam works just fine too, and helps keep the cocktail cold. I like to keep a container of it in the freezer and dip a spoon into it when I "need" to make one of these (this trick also works with frozen lemonade and limeade concentrates, all great when you want to make margaritas on the fly because the purees never really freeze solidly).

How was your Thanksgiving? I sure hope it was wonderful. I thought of my aunt Chris this Thanksgiving. She passed away recently and I miss her, especially on holidays. She was my dad's sister, and the only real aunt I had.

I have a lot great memories of her, but one of my favorites is of her helping me make gravy about 10 years ago when it was my turn to host the family Christmas dinner. I had no clue and I had an electric stove top that required that you move one knob to operate each of the burners (all of the others were stripped). She and I worked together... scraping and moving the knob to control the burners, and produced a gravy of which we would all be proud. She was so calm and never made me feel like I didn't know what I was doing, even though I didn't.

I still don't get gravy I guess, because I put too much water in the bottom of my roaster this year and ended up with seriously diluted pan drippings. I warned my family that we might have a gravy-less dinner and then went to work. Somehow, I ended up with an amazingly flavorful gravy. Thank you aunt Chris. I know you were looking over my shoulder.

Oh, and I made your Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes.  Cheers! And much love.

Bloodhound Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients

2 fluid ounces gin

1 T dry vermouth

1 T sweet vermouth

2 tsp strawberry jam puree

Instructions

1. Chill a coupe or martini glass
2. Fill a shaker with ice and add the rest of the ingredients
3. Strain into the chilled cocktail glass

Enjoy!

Roasted Potato Bread

According to Jeffrey Hamelman in his book Bread, adding potatoes to bread was a result of serious grain shortages near the end of the eighteenth century. Those in power, including the governments, were concerned about unrest, so they attempted to devise ways to add other ingredients to bread to make up for the short supply of grains. While many of the attempted ingredients didn't work, potatoes definitely did.

Multi-grain and Spelt 100% Sourdough Boule

This sourdough bread is one of my new favorites. Even though it's 100% sourdough, the bread can be made in one day (albeit you must start early). The bread has a wonderful fruity sourdough tang.

The dough for this bread is 80% hydration. What does that mean? It's really wet and sticky. In order to get the dough to come together and be workable, I used the "stretch and fold" method. It really is an amazing thing to see the dough come together so that it can develop lovely pockets of air.

Whenever I write about this method, I usually send you to Peter Reinhart's excellent video here. If you're a total bread geek (like me), I think you'd like Craig Ponsford's demonstration too. Go to the 4:40 mark on this video to see the "stretch and fold" method.

This bread contains a blend of bread flour, whole spelt, and a mix of different grains. Because I had some on hand, I used King Arthur Flour's 9-grain blend, but you could easily use a blend of whole wheat, barley, oat, and rye flours. If you can't find barley or oat flours, just play around with whole wheat and rye, or whatever you can find, until you find a blend that you like.

Although my bread did expand in the oven, I think I should have put it into the oven just a bit earlier. This dough rose much more quickly than I expected during the second rise. Check out the Finger Dent Test video here on Ken Forkish's site for tips on how to know when your loaves are ready for the oven. He also has a great video on how to shape the loaves.

Helpful tools:

Dough scraper, bench knife, 12 quart dough rising bucket or large wide bowl, 9-inch bowls (2) or brotforms, and a baking stone or 2 Dutch ovens. You don't "need" all of this stuff, but they do make it easier.

Multi-grain and Spelt 100% Sourdough Boule

Ingredients

430 grams 100% active hydration sourdough starter 

750 grams bread flour

150 grams whole spelt flour

100 grams of a mixture of whole wheat, whole rye, and other flours

700 grams bottled or filtered water

20 grams salt

Instructions

1. Stir the starter, flours, and water together in a large bowl or bucket until everything is blended, about 3 to 5 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for about an hour. 
2. Add the salt, and using your wet hands, pinch the salt into the dough, alternately mixing the dough with your hands, and pinching the dough with your fingers. Do this until you feel the dough develop a little tension. 
3. Let it rise, covered with plastic, at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stretch and fold, and cover again. Stretch and fold two more times, at 30 minute intervals. Let the dough continue to rise until nearly doubled, about another 90 to 120 minutes. 
4. Lightly flour a work surface, and scrape the dough out of the bowl/bucket. 
5. With a wet bench knife, divide the dough into two pieces. 
6. Loosely shape the dough the pieces into two balls, cover with oiled plastic wrap, and let rest for about 15 minutes. 
7. Flour two brotforms or line two bowls with floured dishtowels. 
8. Shape the dough into boules and place them, seam side up, in the bowls. Cover with plastic wrap and let them rise at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours.
9. Prepare the oven for steam by placing a baking stone on a lower rack and a broiler pan underneath it. You will be tossing hot water into the broiler pan right after placing the loaves in the oven. If you'd rather go the Dutch oven route, see this post for instructions. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.
10. When the loaves are ready, turn them out onto peel or the back of a baking sheet lined with good parchment paper. Slash, and slide the loaves, parchment and all, onto the stone. Place one cup of boiling water into the broiler pan and immediately shut the oven door. Turn the oven down to 475 degrees F. 
11. After 20 minutes, pull the parchment out from under the breads and reduce the oven temperature to 425 degrees F. Bake for approximately another 30 to 40 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches about 205 to 210 degrees F. 
12. Cool completely on a wire rack. 

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Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins

These pumpkin applesauce muffins derive a lot of their moistness from pureed pumpkin and applesauce. Of course the butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar help too.... 

A couple of years ago there were rumors of a pumpkin puree shortage. Having never been a big lover of pumpkin, I immediately felt the need to buy a few cans "just in case." I'm not proud of myself. I'm pretty sure it's behavior like this that caused the gas lines in the 1970s and the run on Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80s. 

This year, the rumor is that there is a "small fresh turkey shortage." I'm pleased to say that I did not stock up on extra birds. 

By the way, these muffins were wonderful. Now that pumpkin puree is free flowing again, give them a try!

Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins

Makes about 21 muffins.

Ingredients

Cooking spray

3 1/3 C all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground clove

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp salt

8 T unsalted butter, softened

2 C sugar

4 large eggs

1 C applesauce

1 C canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1 tsp vanilla 

2/3 C apple or orange juice

1 1/2 C golden raisins

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degree F and fill 21 cavities of two regular sized muffin tins with cupcake liners. Lightly spray the liners with cooking spray.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. 
3. In a large mixing bowl or a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, until creamy. Add in the eggs, applesauce, pumpkin, and vanilla, and beat until blended.
4. Add in half of the dry ingredients and and mix. Add the juice and mix. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Don't over mix.
5. Fold in the raisins.
6. Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full. Bake on the center rack for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. 
7. Allow the muffins to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, remove them from the pans, and cool on a wire rack. Can be served warm or at room temperature.

Recipe slightly adapted from Spices of Life: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Great Health.

Double Chocolate Cookies

These double chocolate chip cookies are sort of a cross between a truffle, brownie, cake, and a cookie... all in a very good way. It's kind of a "fluffy" candy bar.

Imagine a cookie that requires just 1/2 cup of flour to a POUND of chocolate.

The flavor of the chocolate is enhanced by 1 1/2 T of espresso flour. You can't really taste the coffee, but it does a wonderful job of enhancing the chocolate flavor.

The eggs, sugar, coffee, and vanilla are beaten at high speed for 10 minutes to create a thick batter. You then add the chocolate, flour, and extra chocolate chunks (seriously) and chill the batter at least overnight and up to 4 days before baking.

These cookies were amazingly easy and will definitely impress any chocolate lover in your world.

Double Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 large room temperature eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp espresso powder
2 tsp vanilla
6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chunks (I used these from King Arthur Flour but I've seen chocolate chunks in grocery stores recently)

Instructions

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl.
2. Melt the bittersweet chocolate, butter, and unsweetened chocolate together in a double boiler or a metal bowl over simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the water) until melted. Set aside to cool a bit.
3. Mix the eggs, sugar, espresso, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer using the wire whip on high speed, for about 10 minutes, until very thick. 
4. Switch to the paddle attachment (one with the built in bowl scraper is really helpful), and on low speed, slowly add the warm chocolate until incorporated. 
5. Add the flour mixture and mix for about a minute.
6. Stir in the chocolate chunks. 
7. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 12 hours or up to 4 days. 
8. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two or three baking sheets with parchment paper. 
9. Scoop the dough by tablespoons onto the parchment, placing the mounds about 2 inches apart. 
10. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for about 10 to 12 minutes. The cookies will appear underdone, but that's okay. 
11. Using a thin metal spatula or a fish spatula, move the cookies to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Continue to bake each sheet until done.
12. These cookies can be individually wrapped and frozen for up to a month. Perfect for holiday planning!

This recipe is from Baking with Julia: Savoring the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers.

The original recipe says it will yield 24 cookies, but I ended up with about 36 cookies.