Chocolate Lovers’ Taza Chocolate Cherry Cookies
Anne Milton
July, 2001
July, 2001
8 oz. any flavor except Guajillo Chili Taza Chocolate Mexicano discs*
6 oz. milk chocolate, best quality (I recommend Valrhona or El Rey)
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup dried tart cherries
1 cup sliced (not slivered) almonds, plus an optional 1/4 cup more for decorating tops
You will also need several sheets of parchment paper
to line cookie sheets.Preheat oven to 350˚
1. Coarsely chop both kinds of chocolate, using sharp knife. (I find a serrated knife works best for this.)
2. Place half the chocolate in a double boiler over barely simmering water, along with the butter, and stir just until melted. Remove upper pan of double boiler from heat, set aside and allow to cool to room temperature (about 20 minutes.)
3. Meanwhile, sift flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. In electric mixer with beater blade, beat eggs until foamy. Beat in vanilla. Add sugar and beat 2-3 minutes, until mixture is thick and pale yellow. Beat in the cooled chocolate and butter mixture and beat 1-2 minutes more, or until thick and uniform in color.
5. Add flour mixture all at once and stir briefly, just until combined. Add remaining chopped chocolate, the cherries and 1 cup almonds. Stir a few times, just folding ingredients together until fairly uniformly distributed. Do not overwork dough.
6. Using a 3/4 oz. cookie scoop, drop batter onto parchment-lined baking sheets in widely-separated mounds. (These will spread while baking, so allow about 9 cookies per sheet.) If desired, sprinkle the tops with a few almond slices.
7. Bake about 15 minutes, or until set: cookies are best if they look dry, but not browned, around the edges.
8. Cool cookies 5 minutes or so on parchment sheets. While still slightly warm, slide off with metal spatula and transfer to racks to cool completely.
Makes about 30 cookies
*I have never used the Guajillo Chili Tazo chocolate for this recipe. It might be wonderful: certainly worth a try, if you're adventurous.
Search Amazon.com for Taza Chocolate Mexicano discs
e-mail us: you can send your comments, recipes, or a personal message to Anne and Colin at: everything-tasty@annedesigns.com
Chocolate, chili, and cherries! Oh my! This looks delicious. I'd probably add vanilla ice cream. Some BBQ curried chicken might be nice to have before hand; but then again maybe BBQ would just crowd the cookie room. Yum!
ReplyDeleteI think these cookies would be the ideal ending to a meal involving BBQ and curry flavors. (And preferably beer.) Would you grill the chicken with the curry on/in it, and if so, please tell us how!
ReplyDeleteI often tend to cook without a recipe but I do like to read recipes and I am sure they influence me even when I don't follow them. Lately I've taken to photographing them into my iphone from various sources. I found a cool App that allows me to create a pdf file from photos and then make folders. This helps keep me things organized and also means I don't have to bring home the store flyer if I like an idea.
ReplyDeleteI have been lucky enough to eat some wonderful meals and I am always drawing on my kinesthetic learning of those loved flavors to explore the territory of my taste buds. When I mentioned the curry chicken, what I was imagining goes something like this:
Open the refrigerator and stare absentmindedly inside, occasionally moving things around until my partner shouts - "will you shut the door!'
Maybe find some sheep/goat milk yogurt to mix with curry powder until it appears about the color of dijon mustard. Chop up some garlic and maybe basil and then marinate the chicken thighs in the curry yogurt mix for several hours. Put the bird on the grill where the vidalia onions are already on the coals. Can't leave those off in summer!
It's best to cook this on the slow side of grilling since the yogurt will help with the nice grill marks but can also be sticky on the grill if the heat is too high. Hang out by the grill; drink a beer or lemonade while cooking the chicken until it's done.
Enjoy dinner in our backyard garden with those Taza chocolate, cherry, chili, cookies for dessert! BTW - I've learned that following a baking recipe is much more important than a meal recipe and I rarely change a thing for fear of mucking up the chemistry. This is a painfully learned lesson from my personal archives of disastrous baking.