*crispy waffle*

A few weeks ago (okay, before Christmas) I heard this story on NPR in which Shirley Corriher, author of Bakewise and frequent guest on Good Eats talks about what makes a good cookie. She ended with one of her recent favorites, chocolate crinkle cookies. I had never made them before, so I was intrigued. (Butterhorns were the holiday cookie of choice in our household growing up.)

After looking at the recipe, and reading about bloggers' attempts to make the cookie, I realized that I would first of all have to cut back on the sugar. The recipe calls for an ungodly 2-3/4 cups of sugar, and that is not even including the powdered sugar on the outside. Holy toothache! Many other bloggers said that it was in fact, too too TOO sweet.

I worked on it for a couple of weeks and came down to this recipe. I reduced the sugar and replaced the canola oil with melted butter. (Come on, why make a cookie without butter?) It is a bit more fudgy than chewy, but is still really super chocolatey. The key is to not overbake it, and in fact underbake it just a little bit. A nice tip I took away from the NPR story was first rolling the cookies in granulated sugar, then powdered sugar prevents the cookie from absorbing the powdered sugar so it stays snowy white.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
makes about 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients
6 tablespoons (75g) butter
8 ounces (227g) bittersweet chocolate
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/4 cup (250g) granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey or corn syrup
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1-3/4 cup flour (232g)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

For rolling:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Melt together the butter and chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Set aside.
With a mixer with a paddle attachment, combine the sugar, honey and eggs on medium speed for 3-4 minutes. The mixture should be lightened and thickened quite a bit.
Add the chocolate-butter mixture to the egg mixture. Beat at medium low speed until well combined.
Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture, and beat at low speed just until combined.
Refrigerate the batter for at least 4 hours.
When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 F (170 C). Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll the dough into 2-inch balls. Roll in the granulated sugar, then the powdered sugar.
Bake for 11 - 13 minutes (I bake them at 11 minutes, but I think my oven runs too hot). They should still look a bit gooey inside.
Let cool and eat the same day if possible (that's when they are best!)

Links:
NPR: Chemist Divulges How To Bake The Perfect Cookie

Labels: recipes, the chocolatey, the sweet

posted by sheryl | 6:16 PM | | share: facebook | tweet this!

These look really good! I love chocolate but I've never had these particular cookies, can't wait to try them.
By

ChefBliss.com 2/9/09 10:38 PM

these cookies looks so perfect, I like the tip on how to keep the icing sugar looking "snowy". yummy!
By

bbaking 2/12/09 12:57 PM