Unfortunately, I have been off my feet for a while and unable to cook or bake; something which does not sit very well with me!!! I decided to leaf through my ever growing cookbook collection to find a simple recipe to ease myself back in. My recipe of choice was taken from the Great British Bake Off cookbook.
Makes 30
100g dark chocolate 70% cocoa solids
100g Stork
150g light brown muscovado sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
175g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tbsp icing sugar
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Grease a baking tray with some extra margarine.
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Break the chocolate into small chunks and put in a large heatproof bowl. Set over a pan of steaming hot water and leave to melt gently.
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Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the margarine. When the mixture is completely smooth, stir in the sugar and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
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Beat the egg with the vanilla until combined and add to the chocolate mixture.
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Sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda and mix well. Put the bowl in the fridge for an hour.
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Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Divide the cookie dough into 30 even pieces and roll into balls before rolling in the icing sugar and covering well.
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Put the cookie dough balls on the prepared baking tray, leaving a good amount of space in between to allow room for spreading.
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Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and, leave on the baking tray for a few minutes before using a pallet knife to transfer to a wire rack to cool.
As always, I made a few adjustments to the recipe. I only had 40g of 70% solids chocolate in my baking storage room (yes, room. It used to be a large storage box which resided in a small storage room off the kitchen. This box now seems to have overflowed into the room much to my boyfriend’s frustration!!) so I had to improvise and use Cadbury’s Bournville for the rest. I really don’t think this was detrimental to the cookies like the recipe states it could have been. Of course 70% solids is always better however, baking is also about improvisation and using what you have in!
I also added a pinch of salt to the cookie dough as salt and chocolate really are the perfect combination and compliment each other perfectly. Make sure you aren’t too heavy-handed with the salt mind you!!
I found that the cooking times published in the book were a little bit out. The recipe stated that the biscuits needed to be cooked for 10 minutes for soft and 12 minutes for slightly firmer cookies. I cooked my first batch for 10 minutes and found that they were a bit bitter and overdone. I cooked my second batch for 8 minutes and found that they were much more to my taste! Of course this probably says more about my oven than it does the recipe!!
I wasn’t sure if the cookies were my best as I certainly was feeling a bit below par however, Neil wolfed down 8 with a glass of milk the minute he came in from work. Perhaps these cookies have helped me get my baking mojo back after all!
5 thoughts on “Recipe: Chocolate Crackle Cookies”
kris
chocolate cookies are always a good idea and have magic powers to make you feel better- so you had better make the most of them 😉 hope your feeling better soon.
sarahsfoodieblog
Thank you so much 🙂 was hoping to have some to give to visitors but they seem to be dissapearing quickly….! And I LOVE your theory about cookies having healing powers!
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