Chocolate Crinkles

I've been quite curious about these cookies. I think what I was attracted most is their irresistible jet black centres contrasted with the sugar white coating.

For a chocolate lover, anything with so much chocolate must be good right?

Recipe
(Adapted from Anita Chu’s Field Guide Cookies)

170g dark chocolate
85g butter, room temperature
100g sugar (used 50g soft brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
188g all purpose flour
20g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
Icing sugar, enough for rolling

1. Melt chocolate and butter over double boiler. Remove and set aside.
2. Shift dry ingredients and set aside.
3. Beat eggs and the sugar until thick. Add vanilla and mix in melted chocolate.
4. Fold in dry ingredients and the egg mixture.
5. Refrigerate for about 2 hours until the dough hardens enough to scoop out. Alternatively can freeze mixture for about 45 min.
   
   
   
6. Preheat oven until 180 degrees. Scoop and roll into small balls.
7. Roll dough in powdered sugar and flatten the tops a little on parchment paper.
   
   
   
8. Bake for about 12 min until set.

Bench notes - I noticed that a couple of bakers who have tried this before said not to over bake it as it is suppose to be a little fuggy, like brownies. I actually prefer crunchy cookies so I baked it on low heat about 100 degrees for a further 10 min. Hm, but still yield a soft cookie! So to manage people expectation, I tell people its a soft brownie cookie.

The icing sugar which I used to coat the cookie melted - anyone knows how to avoid this?

Don't get me wrong, they were nice in their own way. I am just more a crunchy and crispy cookie type of person.

+ Dessert Pizza

Using the same overnight 'Tacky' Peter Reinhart's pizza recipe, we had these over the weekend.

Pizza Dough Recipe used

425g bread floour
42g olive oil
294g water
1.5 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

1. Mix everything together until you have a pliable dough, about 10-15min.
2. Note that dough will be slightly tacky.
3. Store overnight in a covered greased bowl in the refrigerator.
4. 2 hours before baking, roll out pizza base and set aside to proof in a warm draught-free place.

* * * * *

For the first pizza....

Mushroom, feta cheese, crabstick, onions, sausage and pepperoni.

For the second pizza....

Basil, feta, olive, pepperoni and ham.

For dessert....we had pizza too. I've never had a sweet pizza before. So for our first *drum roll* I used nutella spread for the base, added some sliced bananas as toppings with a light sprinkling of cinnamon, butter and brown sugar.

All ready for the oven.

It was nice, something different.

Fabulous with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream!