The Good Stuff

This past Christmas, I received a box of Cacao Barry Dark Chocolate Couverture Origine “Tanzanie” (what a mouthful!) from my boss. I don’t have easy access to fancy chocolates, and having a college student’s budget prevents me from splurging too often, so this was a much-appreciated gift. Since I have a limited supply, I wanted to use the chocolate wisely and not be wasteful!

When I tasted this 75% dark chocolate, I noticed how fruity it is, and it has a sour aftertaste of which I’m not a fan. For Valentine’s Day, I used it to make this mousse, but due to the nature of this particular recipe, the sour taste was highlighted even more, so needless to say I didn’t have very much of it. I figured since I don’t like the taste of the chocolate on its own, I should complement it with other flavours that could tone down the fruity notes. I was in the mood to make chocolate chip cookies, so I decided to go with that, even though CCC’s are simple and don’t require “the good stuff” to make them delicious!

My Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wow, I didn't realize a whole month has gone by without a new post! I've been kept busy by summer school, and the weather has been very hot lately, so I've been lazy. But now I'm back, sort of!

Over the past year, I've made more cookies than anything else. This is partly because I used to bake often at my boyfriend's residence on campus, and since his kitchen was small and lacking in appliances (an electric mixer, amongst other things), I had to resort to making something simple and effortless.

Most of the time I made variations of chocolate chip cookies because we didn't ever get sick of them, and it was fun to try different textures of cookies. Some turned out utterly delicious, like these crispy salted oatmeal white chocolate cookies and these super awesome peanut butter cookies, but they are not true chocolate chip cookies (or CCC henceforth). In fact, I didn't find any CCC recipes that I really loved during those times I spent baking at my boyfriend's place, even though I tried a bunch.


After a while, the boyfriend moved out, I stopped baking cookies and moved on to more complicated things, the boyfriend moved out, and summer vacation started. Cookies were pretty much forgotten since there were many other more challenging treats that I wanted to bake. Then a few months later, my boyfriend's roommate, who was starting to bake CCC's, was looking for a new recipe to try. I looked around and found this recipe for him. To cut the story short, he made them, I couldn't stop eating them, and the next day, I made my own batch. That's how much I love these cookies! Please do give them a try, and if you love cookies with crispy exterior and chewy interior as much as I do, try the other 2 recipes I linked above, too. I think the crispy+chewy combination is my new favourite texture forin cookies!

Thin and Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
recipe from Cookie Madness
yields ~25-30 cookies

4 oz/114 gr cool unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
1 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips (adjust amount to taste)

Beat the butter until creamy. Beat in both sugars and vanilla. When the mixture is fully combined and creamy, add the egg. After the egg is incorporated, add the baking soda and salt. Stir mixture gently until everything is mixed well.

Add the flour and stir until it is almost all blended in, and then add the chocolate chips. Keep stirring until all the flour is mixed in. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Roll the dough into small ping pong-sized balls and place them on the baking sheet, leaving a small space in between for the cookies to spread during baking. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

Let the cookies cool on a metal rack, and get a glass of milk ready!

Buttery Goodness Part 2: Shortbread Hearts

For some strange reason, I had a strong craving for heart-shaped shortbread cookies with jam filling. I remember wanting to make them for last year's Valentine's Day (so long ago!), but nothing materialized because I was busy with school and I ended up making truffles for my boyfriend instead. So this craving came back, and again, I wanted to bake this instead of studying for exams. However, after realizing that I needed to chill the dough for at least an hour, I ended up only making the dough and freezing it for later.

Fast forward ~2 weeks later, I'm finally done with exams and have the chance to bake these cookies. The week prior, I was busy looking for heart-shaped cookie cutters because apparently I had absolutely none at home, not even basic shapes like circles. I searched all over the house and instead I found random equipment I didn't know we had, like a loaf pan, springform pans in different sizes, a cookie press, and not one but TWO muffin tins (this is only ironic to me because I had complained about not having any and I literally went to buy one just hours before I found my mom's hidden collection). Anyway, apparently if you want nice cookie cutters you have to go to well-stocked cookware store, so I trekked all the way there and ended up being too frugal to buy a plastic set for $12. So I ended up getting a set of circular cutters for $7 and my boyfriend insisted on bending them into hearts against my wishes.

Wow, I ended up rambling on the previous paragraph. Anyway, I decided to bake these, lopsided hearts and all. I had trouble with rolling the dough because it was rather crumbly, and they definitely should be rolled out a little thinner. Tastewise, the cookies are exactly what I had been craving for: crumbly and sandy, with a strong butter flavour and just enough sweetness & tartness from the strawberry jam. Unfortunately, I don't have good pictures of the assembled cookies because they all turned out blurry. Fret not, this is not the last time I will be making these cookies!

Shortbread Cookies
adapted from Joy of Baking
yields about 20 cookies

For the dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the filling:
fruit jam or preserve of your choice (I used strawberry)

1. Whisk the flour and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and continue beating for about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and beat until combined. Stir in the dry ingredients until incorporated.

3. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour in the fridge.

4. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

5. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is 3/4 inch (1 cm) thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out the dough and place the shapes 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. Chill for 15 minutes to let the cookies firm up.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned on the surface. Cool on a metal rack for about 10 minutes.

7. Sprinkle icing sugar on the cookies.

8. To assemble, spread some jam on a cookie and top with another cookie, or eat as is!