Chocolate Truffle Cookies

It was my sister-in-law’s birthday in the middle of a very hectic working week, and I was wondering how can I bake something sweet, for her birthday,  and still be able to photograph it in daylight? (I have finally realized that food photography cannot happen in the late evening or night). So the answer was to bake some cookies, gift them to her and reserve a portion of them to be photographed the next day.

These cookies, believe it or not, were made after coming back from work, in 4-5 batches making about 30 good cookies. They are super easy. While I was researching for some good chocolate cookies, I stumbled upon this Dahlia Bakery cookie recipe. People swooned over its perfect balance of chocolate and some more chocolate. Oh yeah! These are packed with so much chocolate,the aroma will linger in your house for the whole day. These cookies have an entire cast of chocolates from the bittersweet cubes to chocolate chips and some cocoa powder.

The batter has a consistency of soft ganache, making them live up to their name of truffle cookie. Rich dense and bursting with chocolate, you will be grabbing more that you intended. Finish them up with a glass of milk.

 

Yield: About 30 cookies     Prep time : 40 minutes     Cooking time per batch : 14 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1 1⁄4 cups (200 grams) all-purpose flour/ maida
• 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (20 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
• 550 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1⁄2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (140 grams) butter, softened
• 2 1⁄4 cups (460 grams) sugar
• 6 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups (340 grams) bittersweet chocolate chips

I always use Morde’s chocolate slab (they come in packs of 500 gms) and Morde’s chocolate chips. They are very easily available in Mumbai, plus they taste as good as any other fancy chocolate slabs, at less than half the cost.

Directions :

1. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder 2-3 times, till it is aerated and mixed together well.
2. Melt the chocolate by the double broiler method, keeping the chopped chocolate in a pan , and the pan in a pot of boiling water. Or the simpler method is to melt it in a microwave, with short bursts of 15-20 seconds, and stirring in the intervals, until the chocolate is smooth.
3. Combine the soft butter, sugar and whisk it till it becomes pale and creamy. Then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well, till fully incorporated. Beat the mixture for a good 5 minutes, till it is very light, almost foamy. Scrape the bowl as required. This whisking is what gives the cookies their shine. Keep the electric beater away. No more whisking from this point on.
4. Then add the melted chocolate and vanilla. Mix just until combined.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients with a spatula. Do not overmix or the cookies with be tough. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C.
7. Start scooping out the cookies as soon as the batter is ready. In the warm Mumbai climate, the batter starts to melt further and gets runny, if it sits for a long time.
8. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and scoop out the batter. It is a good idea to do it with an ice cream scoop. Now it gets a little tricky here. There is no fixed amount of batter per cookie, but you will have to judge that on the basis of your oven and baking tray size. But generally, a scant 1/4 cup is a good amount. (I made a batch in which there was higher amount of batter per cookie, it all melted in the oven and I had one giant baking tray shaped cookie!)
9. Bake until the cookie tops are evenly cracked and they are soft and set, about 14 to 16 minutes. Rotate the pan at about 7 minutes, if your oven has hot spots. If you have 2 pans of cookies in the oven at the same time, also switch them between the racks for uniform baking.
10. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely before removing them from the cookie sheets with a metal spatula.

The cookies can be stored in air-tight containers for 5-6 days at room temperature.

Tip :

1. Though these are deliciously rich, they are quite heavy, so give gift packets to family and friends. You will earn a lot of brownie points err cookie points for it 🙂

2. These cookies are very delicate, I burned one batch because I kept it on the rack closest to the heating coil, for a tad bit longer.

Related :

Brown Eyed Baker Truffle cookies

Home Made Chocolate

 

 

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