Recipe for bountiful, broken-leg cookies
I am sure I am not alone in playing the magpie when faced with a pile of ancient magazines and mentally cloaked in anticipatory anxiety in the waiting room of a doctor or dentist.
Unable to concentrate on the weighty tome in my tote, I flick through the torn and curling pages of the glossies seeking something shining…. the precious gem of a recipe.
On this occasion I had extra time for my search as it was the Saucy Dressings’ chief taster who was attracting the attention of the medic, and time was being lavished on him in the X ray room, and he was being denuded, prodded and poked on various stretchers.
“Moelleux, délicieusement riches, avec de grosses pépites. Je raffole de ces cookies” I read…. looking up ‘raffoler’ (which sounded wonderful) and discovering it means ‘adulate’. Chewy, deliciously rich, with big chunks of dark chocolate…. Hmmm, it sounded worth trying.
And, with a couple of amendments, so it proved to be.
The thick white chocolate decoration gives these cookies a sort of tactile appeal – if you’ve ever seen a Van Gogh ‘in the flesh’ you’ll know what I mean.
You can make the cookie mixture and freeze it – then bake at the last minute and serve warm…
Recipe for bountiful, broken-leg cookies
Makes 15 large cookies
- 155g/ 1 cup and two tbsps. plain flour
- 30g/2 tbsps good quality Dutch cocoa powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 500g dark (70% minimum) chocolate
- 100g/4 oz butter
- 200g/1 cup soft brown sugar
- 2 medium eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 100g white chocolate
- Pinch of salt
- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Line a large baking tray with a silicone sheet – you may need two baking trays (and you may need to bake in two batches).
- Melt 150g of dark chocolate (break it into squares first) in a bain marie. Break up/cut the rest of the chocolate into small chunks.
- Sift the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into a large mixing bowl
- Using an electric beater, whisk the butter and sugar together until they go fluffy.
- Add in both the eggs, whisking all the time, then the vanilla paste and the melted chocolate.
- Stir in the rest of the chocolate.
- Stir in the flour mixture
- Take tablespoons of the mixture and put on the baking tray making sure to leave loads of room around each as they spread widely.
- Bake for about 10 minutes… less is more… you want the cookies to stay gooey.
- Meanwhile melt the white chocolate in a clean bain marie (or you can use the microwave – go here to find out how)
- Leave to cool and then move to a wire rack.
- Use a metal skewer to decorate the cookies with the white chocolate in a sort of modern art style!
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