Saturday, January 10, 2015

Chocolate chip cookies, two ways

I bought a box of Chocolove dark chocolate chips not long ago and used them on two different chocolate chip cookie recipes. These chips are harder to find (I think I got them at Whole Foods, but can’t be certain) and slightly more expensive, but I must say that they tasted much better than the ones I normally get. They were also a bit bigger, perhaps halfway between a chip and a fève, which made for a wonderful ratio of chocolate-to-dough in a single bite. It just goes to show that your cooking is only as good as your ingredients, I guess!

Anyway, the first recipe I made is from Cannelle & Vanille: they get their flavor from muscovado and fleur de sel. Perhaps because they are gluten-free, the methodology is different from most chocolate chip cookies: these are rolled into a log and sliced before being baked. They were really good! I didn’t have amaranth flour, though, so I did some googling and used quinoa flour instead – things turned out fine. The recipe makes about 24 cookies.

8 Tbsp. (110 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used cold margarine)
½ cup (100 g) packed light muscovado or light brown sugar
¼ cup (50 g) natural cane sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg, at room temperature
1 cup (140 g) brown rice flour
½ cup (60 g) amaranth flour (I used quinoa flour)
¼ cup (30 g) tapioca starch
½ tsp. fleur de sel, plus more for topping
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 cup (170 g) chocolate chunks or chips

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter, muscovado sugar, natural cane sugar and vanilla extract. Mix with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the egg and mix until combined.

In a small bowl, whisk together the brown rice flour, amaranth flour, tapioca starch, fleur de sel, and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on medium speed until the dough comes together.

Add the chocolate chunks and mix until thoroughly incorporated.

Scoop the dough onto a piece of parchment paper. With the help of the parchment, roll the dough into a log that is approximately 2 inches in diameter and 12 inches long. Wrap the log with the parchment and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Cut the log into ½-inch disks. Place them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or silicone mats leaving 2 inches in between the cookies. Sprinkle the tops with a bit of fleur de sel. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes or until edges set and start to turn golden. They might look a bit underdone, but this is normal – they will harden as they cool, and slightly under-baking them will keep them chewy and moist. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before trying to lift them. Store them in an airtight container for up to 3 days.


The other recipe I tried is mapled chocolate chip cookies from Sprouted Kitchen. These use two kinds of sugar, though what stood out most was the addition of ground almonds and, of course, maple extract. I must admit that I didn’t like the almonds here and wished I had just used my regular flour (with or without oats, but I’d favor oat flour instead of oat flakes next time). I LOVED the maple, though, and would consider adding that to my regular chocolate chip cookies on occasion! The Engineer really liked these. Note that if I had been in Quebec, I definitely would have used the maple flakes, but they are too hard to come by at a reasonable price in Texas, so I omitted them.

1 stick/ ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature (I used cold margarine)
½ cup muscavado sugar
½ cup turbinado sugar
1 egg, room temperature
½ tsp. sea salt
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp. maple extract
3 Tbsp. maple flakes (optional)
2/3 cup almond meal
heaping ½ cup old fashioned oats
2/3 cup white whole wheat flour
1 pinch of cinnamon
¾ tsp. baking soda
1 cup dark chocolate chips/chopped chocolate

Cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg, sea salt, vanilla and maple extracts and mix again to combine well.

In another bowl, mix the almond meal, oats, white whole wheat flour, pinch of cinnamon and baking soda together. Add the dry to the wet mixture and stir until almost combined, being careful not to overmix. Add the chopped chocolate and give it one more stir to combine. Allow the mixture to chill for at least 20 minutes, or covered overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Place your cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet or silpat, leaving space between for them to spread. Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, until the centers are barely set. They will appear underdone – this is good (I know I keep repeating this, but I find that often, people forget and then complain that their cookies are too hard, so there you go). Allow them to cool and enjoy.

10 comments:

malt_soda said...

Well we do need some new contenders for this year's Summerfest!

Amélie said...

I can't even tell if that's sarcastic. But I've got a few vegan recipes I want to try, so if they turn out well they could be in the running. And I'm all for adding maple to our previous winners, just to make things interesting! Plus, maybe we should do the 36-hour cookie with butter this time (even though it won last time already, with margarine).

malt_soda said...

Maybe we should do a maple comparison with the 36 hour cookie, and then a vegan cookie-off. I have a few vegan ones I want to try as well, and I'm sure Ellie will be excited!

Amélie said...

I'm all for it! Now, the question is: do we tell people that we're tasting vegan cookies, or just... "new cookie recipes"?

malt_soda said...

I think the legal chef would be aghast at the idea of vegan chocolate chip cookies.

What's the difference between maple flakes and maple sugar? I have maple sugar but I don't know that I've ever seen maple flakes.

Also, what kind of chocolate chips do you use? It's getting harder and harder to find dairy free (pareve) chocolate chips here. Even the Callbaut ones I buy have trace amounts of dairy.

Amélie said...

The Legal Chef is EXACTLY the one I had in mind when considering to hide the fact that the cookies are vegan. (Did you know he once confessed on an Ornery board that he can't actually tell the difference between cheap/imitation ingredients and real/quality versions? He just acts like he can?) So yeah, let's only tell him on the last day. :)

Maple flakes are bigger than maple sugar crystals. Maple sugar basically has the same consistency as brown sugar (perhaps a little drier), but the flakes are... about the size of the clusters of stuff in Honey Bunches of Oats? Like, bigger than sea salt, but smaller than Corn Flakes. I've seen them at Metro, but it's been a while. I know you can get them online, too. They are really good, and you can use them to top oatmeal or yogurt. They usually come in packets that contain maybe 1/2 cup.

Chocolate chips: here, I usually buy Ghiradelli, though they do have trace amounts of dairy. I just checked on a package of WF's 365 brand, same thing, and Hershey's too. Maybe Google can help you find a brand that is also allergen-free and sold in Quebec?

malt_soda said...

I will have to look for the flakes once maple season starts!

There are some vegan brands in the natural foods sections, and some kosher brands (which they don't always have where I shop but IGA Cavendish has). I'm guessing trace amounts of dairy is ok for our purposes?

The Actor has requested sugar cookies.

Amélie said...

I looked it up, and Whole Foods does have vegan chocolate chips, but they are not all vegan (and I don'T know if they are kosher). They have 2 WF in Toronto, I think.

Have you looked at Antidote Superalimentation? http://antidotesuperalimentation.com/
I'm sure they would let you know what they have in the store!

Amélie said...

Sorry, I just commented without realizing you had replied. Trace amounts of dairy is fine for me, because it's usually milk fats (not milk sugar). So as long as it's OK for people keeping kosher, then there's no problem.

Last ditch effort: finding vegan chocolate bars and chopping them up.

Why sugar cookies? Does he not feel like we have enough? Is he trying to ruin SummerFest? (Also, sugar cookies lack chocolate.)

malt_soda said...

I'm only mentioning kosher status because when I bake for Shabbat dinner, it's usually meat and I have to make something pareve. I'll probably be making another trip to Au But at some point so I'll pick up more semi-sweet Callebaut chips there. Oddly, their solid block is kosher pareve, but their chips are not.

I cannot speak towards the Actor's motivations but I have informed him that you think he is trying to ruin Summerfest. ;)