My weekly KPI shall be to post a recipe since I've received some feedback that people are looking forward to me posting my recipes! It makes me happy but the other part of me makes me contemplate if I really should since I'm sharing my trade secrets with everybody and nobody needs me to bake for them anymore??
For me, my recipes are very "rough". I don't have exact measurements for everything because I usually go by my gut feeling. I don't measure my chocolate chips or nuts..etc. Because if I like more chocolate chips and the batter looks like it's lacking the chocolate love, I throw in lots of choc chips. That's how I rollll....HAHAH. Actually also, every time I bake something, it's mostly for my family. I know what they like/dislike so I cater to the individuals in the family. Like my sister hates nuts, so sometimes I make a batch without nuts or less nuts. But Ben and my brother loves nuts....so when I want them to eat more, I throw in a generous amount. So don't be so hard-up that the recipe isn't good enough because it lacks this and that, you've got to think about what you/people around you like and just impromptu from there.
Anyway this week will be chocolate biscuits/cookies cos I've been craving for the ones from Fortnum & Mason. If you've yet to try them...please go get your hands on them! They're available in London! Get the Macadamia Dark Chocolate Biscuits!!! The texture is heavenly, sort of crumbly but light...and you can taste the dark chocolate bits in every bite. NOT SOFT, NOT CHEWY! (WHICH I ABHOR IN COOKIES). I swear I can eat the entire tin myself, it's such a good closure for a meal when I have no desserts available. But sadly, it's quite expensive for a poor me so I'm trying to recreate the recipe by examining the ingredients at the back of the tin. HAHAHA.
Everybody has their preference for cookies/biscuits. Some like it chewy and soft, which as you can see from above that I ABSOLUTELY HATE and never understood. Even Ben cringes at the thought of chewy and soft cookies...bleargh. And then there are those cakey, soft fudgy cookies...which are as bad and I've always thought that they have some sort of identity crisis. Please make up your mind if you wanna be a brownie or a cookie?!?! And then there are those who love cookies that are meant to be cookies, crispy/crunchy...and so yummyyyyyyyy!
So I actually tried to google a lot of chocolate cookie recipes and the results were all those that I dont really like (seee my effort in trying to go for a softer approach here?). Alas! I concluded that the cookies I love are not really cookies that the internet world thinks it is...but sable! Sable is a french shortbread where sable means sand in french. The texture is everything I'm looking for because it is not SOFT/CHEWY. I like hard stuff (;
So here you go, a crispy & crumbly biscuit! It doesn't have the exact texture I'm going for (the fortnum texture) but it tastes great! I've adapted the recipe from Food52 Pierre Herme recipe, I've included an egg yolk. Perhaps, I'll try to include a tablespoon of corn flour in future which maybe might help in the fortnum texture I'm going for. If you're trying this recipe, you can sub a tablespoon or two of plain flour for corn flour and let me know how it goes!
ALMOND & DARK CHOC CHIP COOKIES
Recipe adapted from: Food52
Makes about 36
1 ¼ cups (175g) all-purpose flour
½ cup (30g) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (150g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg yolk
¼ cup (50g) packed light brown sugar
¼ cup (40g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A handful of nuts (I used almonds in this case), chopped
100 g bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.
Using a standmixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more. Then add in egg and beat till combined.
Preheat the oven to 150 °C. Line baking sheet with baking paper.
Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients and at low speed, mix just until the flour disappears into the dough. Do not overmix or the cookie will be tough. It is okay if the dough looks crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and nuts and mix only to incorporate.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours.
Then, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick or however thick/thin you like your cookies to be. These cookies doesn't spread too much so what you cut is what you're likely to get. I flattened my a bit after I cut them cos they looked too thick. Once again, it's up to you baby! (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them — don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.)
Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.
The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.Note: If you find that they're still soft after cooling, just throw it back into the oven and bake it a while longer probably 5 mins or so. It'll be soft again when it bakes in the oven but once you remove and let it cool, it'll become harder/crispier.
Every biscuit is unique in its own ways. Doesn't matter if it's cracked, round or out of shape, you are who you are...little biscuits of mine. I love each and every one of you in your own ways.
And then, to fulfill my fetish of destroying all the crispy/fluffy stuff that I bake, here's one which I crushed with my fingers. MUAHAHA
