World Peace Cookies

These past few days have been extremely relaxing as the entire city celebrates Durga Puja. I have been browsing through Doris Greenspan’sbook and making a mental list of all the desserts that I am going to try. Ms. Greenspan gives foolproof recipes that always turn out well regardless of how hard you try to mess them up! Remember the double chocolate chip shortbread and the apple pear crisp?

She claims that these cookies can achieve world peace. One bite, and I agree. When I put them in the oven, my family started coming into the kitchen one by one within minutes. “Are they baked?,” “When will they be done?,” “Can I eat one NOW?” – this every 2 minutes. These goodies are going to make your entire house smell chocolatey and warm.

I twisted things around a bit when I tried it out. Usually when I bake, I use salted butter even when the recipe calls for unsalted and skip the additional salt. This time I used salted butter and the salt as well. These cookies are supposed to be salty and salt also increases the chocolatiness of chocolate! And instead of using bittersweet chocolate, I used milk chocolate. Since the cookie was salty I wanted a completely sweet contrast of milk chocolate. Also, don’t worry about the granulated sugar that doesn’t dissolve in the butter. Each bite of the cookie will give a fabulous sugar crunch!

Now, don’t wait – try these out today and if the cut rounds aren’t perfect, just call them rustic!

World’s Best Chocolate Cookies

Makes 36 cookies

Ingredients

1 ¼ th cups flour

1/3^rd cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons / 115 grams plus 3 tbsps unsalted butter (I used salted)

2/3^rd cup (packed) light brown sugar

1/4^th cup sugar

½ tsp fleur de sel or 1/4 th teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate roughly chopped (I used milk chocolate)

1. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together.
2. Beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy.
3. Add both the sugars, salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes.
4. Pour in the dry ingredients and pulse 5 times until the flour is just incorporated. The mixture will be a little crumbly. At this stage, don’t work the dough too much.
5. Add the chocolate bits and mix.
6. Bring the dough together and divide it in half.
7. shape the doughs into logs that are 1 ½ inches in diameter and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours.
8. center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 325 F or 190 C. line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper / foil.
9. using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are ½ inch thick. Arrange them onto the baking sheet and bake them one sheet at a time for 12 – 15 minutes.
10. transfer them onto a wire rack and cool them before serving with a glass of cold milk.