serious chocolate cookies

yes folks, these chocolate cookies are serious in their chocolosity.  Chocoliciousness.  Chocolaciousness.  You know.  The recipe is adapted from the joy of baking website.  Theirs look good, but I can't actually judge how they taste because of course I'm not capable of following someone else's recipe without tweaking it.  So, like I said, theirs look pretty good, but mine?  Mine are insane.

What you'll need:
450 grams semisweet chocolate
1/4 c. butter
4 eggs
1 1/3 c. sugar (I use raw sugar, just because it's what I have on hand)
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract (if you're lucky enough to be able to find it where you live.  The cookies work without it too)
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Step 1: Melt chocolate and butter over low heat.  Lick spatula.  Grin.

Step 2: Beat eggs and sugar until pale yellow and thick enough to fall from the whisk in ribbons.  If you're doing this by hand, get tired and stop before you get that far.  Worry for a second, but then relax because you know these cookies are going to turn out stupendous anyway.

Step 3: Add the melted chocolate mixture and the vanilla extract to the egg mixture.  Stir.  Drool.  Grin.

 Step 4: Add the dry ingredients and mix gently until completely combined.

Change tools frequently so you have an excuse to lick the whisk, the spatula, and the spoon.  Grin.

Step 5: Here comes the hard part.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for minimum half an hour, ideally an hour or more so that it firms up.  That means no sticking your finger in for extra licking.  Preheat the oven to 350 F (177 C) and try and distract yourself.

When it the dough comes out the texture will be much thicker, more mousse-like, and easy to scoop.

Step 6: Scoop it out with a small spoon onto a cookie tray with a silicone liner.  You could make them big, but they pack a pretty intense chocolately punch, so I like to make them really small.  That way also you can eat 10 and really it's only like you had 3.  If the dough is sticking too much, use a little warm water to moisten your fingers/the spoon.

Baking time varies a lot, so keep your eye on these guys.  I set the timer for 10 minutes and then watch like a hawk.  It'll depend a lot on how big you make them.  The tops will begin to crack and wrinkle, but they should still look very soft and doughy in the center.  We want these to come out chewy, not crispy like in the original recipe.

Step 7: Let them cool a little, otherwise they'll fall apart as you try to lift them.  Who are we kidding?  Just dig in!  And grin.

Note: even though you might not think it, with only 1/2 c of flour in them, this recipe will make a ton of little cookies.   Share them, give them away, eat them all yourself, I'm not judging.  Just saying. One thing I do is only bake half the batch, and save the dough for a day or two in the fridge.  It keeps pretty well, it hardens a lot more, but I don't think it has much effect on the final baked cookie.

losing control with strawberries

Strawberry season is here. That's not really reason to celebrate too much, because they have ruined strawberries with genetic manipulations - one of my pet peeves. What we get are pink-to-pale-red chunks, sour and largely tasteless, with a thick white woody center, an almost crunchy texture, and a faint aroma of what used to be strawberries. And that includes the organically grown ones. I buy them because every time I see them, I think to myself maybe this time... Hope springs eternal. But yesterday, I lost my mind. Whole Foods was selling huge 4 lb boxes in addition to the normal sized boxes, and I bought one. Crazy lunatic woman.

The truth is, I had come across Harold McGee's article on berries and thermotherapy, and as someone who regularly loses most of the berries to mold, I was anxious to try his method. No, that doesn't justify buying four pounds, I'm aware of that. So shut up.

As soon as I got home, I got my pasta pot going. Heated the water to 125 F (52 C), put a single layer of strawberries into the pasta insert, lowered it into the hot water, and kept it there for 30 seconds. Then I placed them on paper towels without crowding them. Repeated this until all four pounds had been "bathed." I waited until the strawberries were dry, separated some to use right away, and put the rest into a ziploc bag, sucked the air out through a straw from one corner of the bag, and closed it tightly. OK, now what. We'll figure it tomorrow, I thought. I can freeze most of it for making smoothies, and use others to top cereal with yogurt. All healthy and responsible eating.

I started today by pureeing some in the food processor. I had no idea what I was going to do with it when I started, but then everything came to me quickly. Because evil temptation was whispering in my ear nonstop. I had some Crave Brothers mascarpone at home. Added it to the strawberries. Then grated the peel of half a lemon into it - it smelled heavenly. Nope, I'm not going to add sugar. So far it's still pretty healthy. Now how do I eat this goop? Ideally, you'd make a tart with it. Or cheesecake. Or muffins. Or crepes. That's it, crepes.

I made crepe batter with only half a cup of flour, so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat a mountain of them. Half a cup will usually make 3-4 crepes. I added a bit of agave syrup. (Oh yeah, I'm so so health conscious) and made my crepes. I filled them with a tiny bit of melted chocolate (60%, so that's good, right?) and poured the strawberry mascarpone concoction on. Heaven. So good that I refuse to feel guilty. I promise the rest of the strawberries will go into very very healthy things.