What's chocolate to you? A guilty pleasure? Comfort food? Love potion, perhaps? A tried and tested pick-me-up?
If you answered "all of the above", I have a scandalous find for you.
But let me start with the beginning. You see, I'm kind of a dedicated chocoholic. Right from school, when I'd squander away my pocket money on bars of chocolates, to work, when I'd scoff at least a bar of chocolate a day either in misery or while gloating over my wee achievements. I knew I'd always be yielding to temptations to this dark, sinewy mass of cocoa goodness.
Of course, that's all changed now. Two words, akin to a life jail-sentence, burst my fairy-tale bubble that I can never get fat. "Baby weight". So unfortunately, I can't let the calorie-counter tick away into a Size 8 and the doughy center has to go. As a result, the chocolate escapades had to melt down and all I was left with were two tiny squares of chocolate a day. Says a lot about my restraint, doesn't it? No, it's too delicious an affliction to give up completely. Unless, you want me to look starved and unhappy.
And just one of these days, when there was no afterglow of cocoa quickies to be had (well, somebody ate my chocolate), I allowed myself to drift into a Willy Wonka-ish fantasy that led me with its warm, rich and exotic notes to this delightfully decadent recipe by Nigella Lawson. God bless her!
But I didn't quite get to reading the recipe. The recipe was just a haze to me. This is what I saw first when I resolved to hit the supermarket the next day in the mad conquest for all the building blocks of utopia, so to speak.
If you answered "all of the above", I have a scandalous find for you.
But let me start with the beginning. You see, I'm kind of a dedicated chocoholic. Right from school, when I'd squander away my pocket money on bars of chocolates, to work, when I'd scoff at least a bar of chocolate a day either in misery or while gloating over my wee achievements. I knew I'd always be yielding to temptations to this dark, sinewy mass of cocoa goodness.
Of course, that's all changed now. Two words, akin to a life jail-sentence, burst my fairy-tale bubble that I can never get fat. "Baby weight". So unfortunately, I can't let the calorie-counter tick away into a Size 8 and the doughy center has to go. As a result, the chocolate escapades had to melt down and all I was left with were two tiny squares of chocolate a day. Says a lot about my restraint, doesn't it? No, it's too delicious an affliction to give up completely. Unless, you want me to look starved and unhappy.
And just one of these days, when there was no afterglow of cocoa quickies to be had (well, somebody ate my chocolate), I allowed myself to drift into a Willy Wonka-ish fantasy that led me with its warm, rich and exotic notes to this delightfully decadent recipe by Nigella Lawson. God bless her!
But I didn't quite get to reading the recipe. The recipe was just a haze to me. This is what I saw first when I resolved to hit the supermarket the next day in the mad conquest for all the building blocks of utopia, so to speak.
What I like most about this picture, well apart from the masterpiece itself, is that she has placed a glass of chocolate milk beside it. Chocolate milk with Totally Chocolate-Chip Cookies!
Sold to the crazy lady screaming, "I want! I want!" in the first row!
One thing that I'd like to say about this recipe, and it's not often that you can say that about baking assignments, is that it's absolute perfection! I made it exactly like the recipe said, only had to increase the baking time by 7-10 minutes, as I was making it in my microwave-convection oven. And voila! You have a bite of heaven in your kitchen.
Since I've tried this recipe before, here is some more helpful information that you need to remember before making this particular chocolate-chip cookie:
New-at-baking FAQs:
1. Do you really need that much chocolate?
Uh...yes. It's an investment, remember.
2. Can you tweak the recipe to your liking, if you're not that big on chocolate?
Instead of dark chocolate morsels, you may add walnuts, white chocolate chips or even chopped raisins to give it another dimension. They will still turn out as good. (Except they won't be chocolate chip then, technically.)
3. Can I taste the dough before baking?
Absolutely NOT! For you will have to fight the urge to eat it all! Unless you're Buddha. (Not sure why Buddha will be baking cookies in the first place.)
4.Can I freeze the dough and use it later?
Sure, go ahead and do that! You can make a large quantity of the dough and bake at your beck and call.
5. Which dark chocolate should I use?
I used Lindt dark chocolate and then Nord and Callebaut in the subsequent attempts. I'd have to say Callebaut turned out the best. Just be sure to look for that small print of Cacao percent. You're looking for atleast 70 percent.
6. How's it different to bake in a microwave convection?
If you've tried baking before, you'll observe that in a Microwave-convection, the second batch comes out more evenly cooked, in less time, as compared to the first batch. You may need to watch and adjust time by as much as 10-15 minutes, depending on your microwave settings.
7. Do you really require a baking sheet or can you just do with lubricating the cookie tray enough? No amount of buttering will help here. You need a baking sheet to ensure your cookies don't stick to the bottom of the tray.
8. What kind of texture am I looking for in these cookies?
These cookies have a slightly moist, cakey texture as opposed to a dry, crunchy one.
And behold! Here is the link to an unconquerable quest for chocolate, fulfilled for the time being :).
Bon chance!
If you have any other golden tips to add to this treasure trove, feel free to share in your comments below.
I want I want I want..readymade...
ReplyDeleteHahaha. Guess I've passed the curse on :-). This baking project I can do anytime :-).
ReplyDeleteGood hai..I for some reason have stopped liking chocolate.. which is good for me! :)
ReplyDeleteHahaha. That's truly an achievement! But how did that happen?
ReplyDelete