O What a wonderful world of cookies! (Cookie Swap-SHF #14)
~This is my first time to enter the Sugar High Friday and their theme this month is cookies. It’s the perfect time to bake batch after batch of cookies!
I came across this event through my friend’s blog, Riana. I’ve inspired to do it this month and both Jennifer and Alberto are the hosts. My entries are quite simple, bittersweet chocolate madeleines and cookie dough brownies. I’ve always loved the shape of madeleines cookies and I think they’re just too cute to be eaten. Surprisingly it’s not difficult to make a batch or two of them. This recipe is a little different than the regular one since I used bittersweet chocolate, but the result is still heavenly! They’re good to be dunked into a hot cup of tea and you’ve got to eat them while they’re still warm.
Source: The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons nonalkalized cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Special equipment
Two regular madeleine pans
Make the batter
1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Continue to cook until the solids at the bottom of the pan turn light brown and the butter is fragrant, about 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the butter cool until tepid.
2. In the top of double boiler over barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the chocolate to cool until tepid.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
4. Place the eggs ina medium bowl and, using a rubber spatula, stir them just until they are blended and smooth (you don’t want to whip them or incorporate too much air). Stir in the granulated sugar and light brown sugars until well blended. Very gently, fold in the flour mixture all at once until just blended (do not overwork the batter). Stir the vanilla extract into the cooled butter, then add this to the batter, stirring just until combined. Stir in the melted chocolate. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes or until the batter has thickened sligthly.
Bake the madeleines
5. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degree F. Spray two madeleine pans thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray.
6. Place a dollop of batter in each mold, filling them two-thirds full and mounding the batter slightly in the center. Bake, one pan a t a time, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the madeleines are set and domed in the center; do not overbake, or the madeleines will be too crusty. Invert the madeleines onto a wire rack. Dust the madeleines ligthly with sifted confectioners’ sugar.
Makes about 34 cookies
~I have a love and hate relationship with brownies. I think they’re good as long as they’re not too sweet and not to dry. This recipe combines those two together and the result is a winning recipe. I have to thank my friend Beth for giving me this recipe last year when we had a real cookie exchange with a bunch of other gal friends. This is also my husband’s favorite brownies, I couldn’t blame him for that.
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional
Filling
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
Glaze
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon shortening
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, cocoa and salt. Add oil, eggs and vanilla; beat at medium speed for 3 minutes. Sitr in walnuts if desired. Pur into a greased 13-in, x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Bake at 350 degree F for 30 minutes or until brownies test done. Cool completely. For filling, cream butter and sugars in a mixing bowl. Add milk and vanilla; mix well. Beat in flour. Spread over the brownies; refrigerate until firm. For glaze, melt chocolate chips and shortening in a saucepan, stirring until smooth. Spread over filling. Immediately sprinkle with nuts, pressing down slightly.
Makes 3 dozens.
Hi again Eliza! Thought I’d come back and recreate my comment, except I can’t remember specifically what I said! At any rate, both recipes look and sound delicious. One is so sophisticated and one is so classic!
Comment by lisasd — December 4, 2005 @ 3:31 am
Hi Eliza, thanks for your comment on my blog.
Your creations are just beautiful. Photo of bittersweet chocolate madeleines giving me serious chocolate cravings. and I love the look of your blog.
Comment by Indira — December 4, 2005 @ 9:04 pm
Your cookies look incredible (the brownie recipe sounds positively evil!!). Thanks to you, I think I’m going to add “a madeleine pan” to my Christmas wish list.
Comment by Tania — December 8, 2005 @ 5:17 pm
Hi, since you say all-purpose and not self-raising flour, the amount of baking powder is missing from the list of ingredients; I put about 1-1,5 teaspoons, and it turned out great! Thanks for the recipe!
The madeleines used non alkalized cocoa powder so you don’t have to use baking powder. But the brownies’ original recipe didn’t have baking powder in it & I didn’t change anything…it’s really up to you to add it up!
Comment by t3v — February 7, 2007 @ 3:38 am
I didn’t try these brownies, but my favourite recipe doesn’t have baking powder either, no question there. The only reason I thought it would be my way, i.e. baking powder missing from the ingredients’ list, is your instructions that say
“3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.”
I don’t think one can get non alkalized cocoa in this end of the world, anyway, and the result was great, so I don’t really care
:) I apologize! I checked my recipe and found the mistake. The madeleine includes baking powder in it, but I somehow omitted while writing the recipe. Now I’ve corrected it. Thanks so much for your sharp eyes!
How come you can’t get non alkalized cocoa in your place? Where do you live?
Comment by t3v — March 16, 2007 @ 5:02 am
I’m writing from (and cooking/baking in) Hungary, Europe atm. This is a small country, and I don’t live in the capital—which is a problem if you are looking for special ingredients. But wherever you live within the borders of this place, you have only two choices: really poor quality, low-fat, colourless and tasteless cocoa powder, or fine “Dutch-style” (alkalized) cocoa powder—in other words, cheap and expensive are the alternatives. To all I know, you can’t get Hershey’s around here.
I didn’t really care about alkalized and non-alkalized cocoa before coming across your recipe
but I googled, and I found that recipes are adjustable: adding an acid to the batter when using alkalized cocoa powder solves the problem. On the other hand, I’ve been baking with Dutched cocoa for more than a decade now, and have had no problems at all – at least nobody’s complained 
Very interesting. I remembered when I lived in Indonesia, people would use Dutch-style cocoa powder more often than the non-alkalized one. I didn’t pay attention to which type of cocoa powder to use too, but once I got interested into baking seriously then I understand the difference between the two.
BTW, do you have a blog?
Comment by t3v — March 18, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
Nope, no blog for me (no digital camera, no time etc.), BUT we have a brand new site for collecting all known Hungarian foodblogs (similar to “the foodblog blog” for the international scene):
http://gasztro.blog.hu/
And where the whole Hungarian foodblog mania began:
http://chiliesvanilia.blogspot.com/
She often posts in English too, and her blog is worth a visit in any case.
In a matter of weeks, our “blogcollector site” will have instant rss feed added, so you can see the newest posts (in both English and Hungarian), maybe you’ll find something nice to your tase.
Cheers, t3v
I’ve checked the Hungarian foodblog…now I have to use web translator if I ever wanted to try the recipe
It’s so amazing that everywhere people are blogging about food. We could see and even attempted to make food from faraway places. They’re not so foreign anymore! thanks for stopping by so often!
Comment by t3v — March 22, 2007 @ 2:56 pm