World Peace in a Cookie?

 

I thought the best place to start with in my blog was to say thank you to all the blogs that I look to for inspiration.  I kept noticing that there are a lot of Dorie Greenspan fans out there and might I say, with good reason!  Part of the reason i moved from thinking about having a blog to doing it is I have looked at the ‘Baking with Dorie’ and ‘Daring Bakers’ challenges and wanted to give them a go.

 

So, as my first effort here are the “World Peace Cookies” that have been seen in many blogs. My small contribution is to give the metric measurements.  I just love to weigh!  One of the original versions is found here  so check that out, if you don’t like dragging out the scales or my procedure is a little sketchy

 

 

World Peace Cookies

makes about 36.

 

Ingredients

165g of plain or all purpose unbleached flour

30g of cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

155g unsalted butter (room temp)

145g light brown sugar

50g sugar

1/2 tsp fleur de sel (I used Maldon) or 1/4 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

140g dark chocolate chopped into chips

 

Procedure

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Beat the butter until soft and creamy.  Add both the sugars, the salt and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes more.

3. Turn off the mixer and add the dry ingredients (except the chocolate).  I used a spatula for this and then gave the suggested short pulses with the mixer.  You just want the flour incorporated.  Do not overwork.  Then toss in the chocolate and mix in by spatula or spoon.

4. Turn out onto a work surface (with clingfilm waiting) and form into 2x 4cm diameter logs. (mine were about 16cm long)  Wrap them up well and chill for at least 3 hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 170C.  Line your baking trays with baking paper or silicone.

6. Slice the rounds into 1cm thickness using a sharp knife or my preference the ‘bencher’ (see photos).  They may crumble a bit but squeeze them back together.  Arrange on the baking trays leaving 2-3 cm between them.

7.  Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes.  They will still be very soft and not look done.  Allow to cool (at least until the chocolate is not molten) and enjoy.

 

There are keeping instructions but my batch disappeared so quickly I will allow anyone with better willpower and less hungry boys inhaling sweet things to search that out.

 

Would these cookies bring world peace?  Maybe not, but it brought relative quiet to my boys for a few precious moments.  I even got to drink a fairly warm cup of coffee.