Jun

16

Chocolate therapy with World Peace Cookies

June 16, 2008 |

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Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. - Jim Davis

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These are not very peaceful times. Our house looks like a tornado blazed through, our calendars show about 40 tasks to be accomplished in the next two days, the yard is going berserk, and there are work deadlines to be met. Before attacking the piles of papers and clothes, we wanted to get this post in, ‘cos it’s for a special event.

Each month the lovely Zlamushka hosts Tried and Tasted to highlight and commemorate one outstanding food blog. This month it’s Nupur’s One Hot Stove. This is the first food blog we came across a few years ago, and it is still the one we refer to most often for healthy vegetarian recipes from around the world. Her A-Z of Indian Vegetables series is one of the best web resources on Indian vegetarian cuisine.

Nupur’s blog reflects her personality - approachable, expressive, innovative, socially conscious and eternally curious. She experiments with a variety of cuisines and crafts, and her engaging writing style along with Dale’s shenanigans make her blog a truly special place.

Nupur is a generous soul. She always has a word of support for her fellow bloggers and volunteers actively in her community. We trust her judgement implicitly and have enjoyed nearly two dozen recipes from her site. The choice of these cookies was a rather cursory one. We didn’t pick a recipe. The recipe picked us.

Left: milk solids. Right: ghee (clarified butter)

We’d just made a batch of homemade ghee (clarified butter). We use organic unsalted cultured butter. (HOW TO MAKE GHEE).

After making ghee, we drained out the milk solids. If you stir the milk solids while still warm, they will form a paste - like soft butter, with the heavenly ghee aroma. Instead of throwing it out, we thought of using it as a butter substitute in a recipe. Our first choice was biryani, but it’s too much work.

Plan B: Cookies. We needed a recipe that used 1/3 cup butter.

While we’re not huge cookie fans, there’s one that we simply adore - Ricciarelli - the Tuscan cookies made with almonds and egg whites.

That recipe uses no butter. We surfed Nupur’s blog and found these World Peace Cookies.

This is Dorie Greenspan’s favourite cookie. It first featured in her Paris Sweets as Pierre Herme Korova Cookies, and later in Baking: From My Home to Yours as World Peace Cookies.

This is the No-Knead Bread’s cookie counterpart with bloggers everywhere raving about how easy and delicious it is.

This cookie is, as the Washington Times explains,

… aptly described as “butter-rich, sandy-textured, slice-and-bake cookies.” They were adapted from the celebrated French pastry chef Pierre Herme, but are simple enough for a home cook to master.

There’s a double dose of chocolate in the dough cocoa powder and coarsely chopped bits of bittersweet bars, but the secret ingredient is a generous seasoning of fleur de sel, a coarse sea salt, that intensifies the chocolate flavor…

World peace cookies were named by a neighbor of the author who believes that a daily dose of these sweet morsels are the best route to ensure planetary calm. I’m certain these chocolate delicacies could serve a diplomatic role, but for me, they are just what I’m looking for in a holiday cookie — easy to make, freezable and indulgent.

We adapted the recipe from Nupur’s source @ Dessert First.

Halve the recipe, and you need exactly 1/3 cup butter.

OUR VARIATIONS

1. Milk Solids in lieu of butter.
You’d have to ensure that they are pale gold. If they turn brown or near burnt, they’d be bitter and useless in this recipe. Using milk solids has two advantages (in addition to salvaging what you’d normally throw away).

- A quick visual examination reveals that the fat clinging to it is about 50%. Using 1/3 cup milk solids would mean you’re using only about 3 tablespoons fat.
- When it is warm and stirred well, it forms a paste. This paste is much closer in texture and flavour to butter than substitutes like applesauce or prune puree, and the end result tastes almost exactly like the original.

2. A dash of instant coffee powder to enrich the cocoa flavour.

3. Brown sugar is simply sugar plus unsulphured molasses. We used that combo. You can also try combining sugar and jaggery or maple syrup and jaggery.

World Peace Cookies / Pierre Herme’s Korova Cookies

adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets

(Makes 15 to 18 cookies depending on how much raw dough the chef likes to eat.)

Mix together

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch process)
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Cream together (we just used a spoon)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
** We used the milk solids left over after making ghee/clarified butter. See note above.
1/2 cup brown sugar
** We used 1/2 cup regular sugar plus 2 tsps unsulphured molasses
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

When they have blended together well, add the flour mix and just press together lightly until it looks like it’s coming together. Don’t over mix if you want tender cookies.

Cut up 2.5 ounces of good bittersweet chocolate and mix it in gently.

Put the dough into a piece of parchment and shape it lightly into a log shape. Moist fingers are useful for this.

If you don’t want misshapen cookies like ours, make sure the log is round on all sides, not flat at the bottom. Lift the two sides of the parchment upwards and roll it around a bit. Then fold the edges down and put the dough in a plastic bag or container in the refrigerator. Chill for between one hour to three days.

Take it out and thaw on the counter for at least 20 minutes. If the log is too brittle, it will crumble when you cut it.

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Cut the log into discs. We got 15. If bit and pieces fall off, just press them back on the top. Again, moist fingers help.

Bake for 12 to 13 minutes. They will look all wet and gooey. That’s okay. After five minutes on the baking sheet. take a spatula and put them on a wire rack to cool.

Verdict: Very chocolatey melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Ours were a bit salty because we added a BIG pinch of salt. Use a tiny pinch. We will definitely be making these again the next time we make ghee.

Nupur’s World Peace Cookies go to Zlamushka for Tried and Tasted.

- Bee and Jai

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SPEAK YOUR MIND

38 Comments so far

  1. Bharti on June 16, 2008 10:07 am

    Yumm, cookies look so good!
    Coincidentally, I too just made batch of ghee from organic butter just a couple of days ago. AND I also am going to make these same cookies from engineerbaker’s blog for the taste and create event. She uses cacao nibs in her version and I was going to pick those up , but looking at yours I don’t think I can wait any more. Must bake cookies today..

  2. Asha on June 16, 2008 10:28 am

    Chocolate in World Peace cookies sounds good!:)

    I have a post for ghee making too, don’t know what else to post these days!:D

  3. arundathi on June 16, 2008 10:57 am

    “The best route to ensure planetary calm”… Dang Right!

  4. Happy Cook on June 16, 2008 11:07 am

    I have never made ghee in my whole life. Actuaally i rarley use them. You are so clever in using the milk solids to make the cookies than throwing it away.
    You had a mishap in the kitchen that is a miracle ;-)
    Love the chocolate cookies, actually i love anything with chocolate.
    And bee can’t say what my fav smell is , it is a bit you know….

  5. sunita on June 16, 2008 11:16 am

    Those cookie would definitely usher in lotsa peace :-P

  6. OhioMom on June 16, 2008 11:42 am

    If I need therapy, I definitely want it with chocolate :) So many recipes, so little time.

  7. Mishmash! on June 16, 2008 12:18 pm

    hmm…now i understand what you meant by sanity in life :)
    Take care and relax!

  8. Kalai on June 16, 2008 1:33 pm

    Ahhh… chocolate… Just makes everything better, doesn’t it? Beautiful cookies! :)

  9. Cham on June 16, 2008 2:09 pm

    Another delicious way to use the milk solid, choco cookies re delectable…

  10. Maya on June 16, 2008 2:26 pm

    You don’t even need to buy butter.. my mom used to collect the “pada”(top layer of milk after boiling) and store it in the freezer. At the end of one or two weeks she would thaw it and then beat it in the mixer to form butter (centifugal forces of the mixer and all) and then heat the butter till all the water disappeared and strain it.. I haven’t done it coz am lazy but I know its possible coz I have witnessed it. :)

  11. musical on June 16, 2008 3:02 pm

    This is the cookie! Cocoa and coffee sure is an amazing combination! No wonder this recipe picked you up :-D

    Where’s my share ;)

  12. Shankari on June 16, 2008 3:32 pm

    Give this cookie in any shape or form, I would eat it and all of it in one go..I promise!:)

  13. nags on June 16, 2008 6:08 pm

    i think this is the first slightly unhealthy (if u can call it that) recipe on ur blog that i am coming across and makes me feel better about the deep frying i did yesterday :) now, if only i could get my hands on a good oven..

  14. Linda on June 16, 2008 6:32 pm

    Gorgeous cookies! And I second every word about dear Nupur :)

  15. TBC on June 16, 2008 8:13 pm

    Hope things setle down for you soon. :D

    BTW, how is Bri doing? I was checking her blog to see if there were any updates…

  16. Aparna on June 16, 2008 9:07 pm

    These cookies would certainly calm me. That chopped up chocolate is calling to me.:)

  17. Pelicano on June 16, 2008 10:23 pm

    That’s a very good use of the non-ghee; I save my solids too. I’ve been saving them for when I make mashed potatoes except that I rarely make mashed potatoes and when I make them I totally forget about adding them in and therefore: it just sits there. But instead of trying out your recipe- delicious as the finished product looks (and the description sounds), I’ll try making Martha Stewart’s CC cookies, take notes, and submit a report back to you! hehehehehe :-D

    P.S. Stay away from the Haagen-daz! (unless it’s on sale) ;-)

  18. arundati on June 16, 2008 10:42 pm

    great use of the milk solids….cookies look great and am sure contributed greatly to the restoration of sanity!!

  19. Jyothsna on June 16, 2008 11:23 pm

    Chocolate and world peace…heavenly! I’ve never made ghee at home, but I remember my mum dunking some rice and sambhar in the milk solids and feeding us! Hated it then but miss that now!

  20. Mind Body Shop on June 16, 2008 11:34 pm

    Eating Chocolate is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not eat chcolate, can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition.

  21. Núria on June 17, 2008 2:16 am

    As always, your pictures make me bow… soooooooo pretty! The first one is Beautiful!

    I still have to try getting massaged with chocolate… but seems to be the thing! Meanwhile I wouldn’t mind to have a bunch of your cookies :D

  22. Nupur on June 17, 2008 2:25 am

    You are way too generous with your words…thank you! These cookies were sublime but so rich that I made them only once :)
    I love all your tweaks- the use of milk solids is sheer genius, and coffee powder would surely amp up the taste.

  23. sia on June 17, 2008 2:30 am

    bee, plz pass me those cookies if u really want world peace ;)

  24. sushma on June 17, 2008 3:23 am

    bee cooklies luk awesome..

  25. Priya on June 17, 2008 4:57 am

    I loved the idea of reusing the Milk solids. Awesome cookies!

    I would suggest the Plastic wrap (Cling wrap) instead of Parchment paper as it helps handling the dough well.

    Regards,
    Priya.

  26. Dee on June 17, 2008 6:39 am

    Nupur’s blog is truly special and the cookies look mouthwatering :)

  27. Priya on June 17, 2008 7:24 am

    All that you have said about Nupur and her blog are what I share too, these cookies were actually way up my list when she posted them, how the hell did I leave these chocolatey goodies out! Will try them out right away…
    You guys sure have your energy dose ready for all that work you have lined up. Good luck with the deadlines.

  28. Laavanya on June 17, 2008 8:13 am

    Those look so chocolatey and delicious… :)

  29. Sonal on June 17, 2008 9:29 am

    Good luck with the deadlines…and awesome recipe!

  30. Meeta on June 18, 2008 12:53 pm

    oh I love these cookies. I’ve made them often for Soeren. Perfect

  31. Johanna on June 19, 2008 9:58 pm

    Looks like an excellent way to eat chocolate - and a fun name to make the enjoyment go that little bit further

  32. Rashmi on June 22, 2008 8:34 am

    When I think of nice people, you are one of the first that comes to my mind. A little award for you on my blog.

  33. Bharti on June 22, 2008 7:07 pm

    …..Apart from me being completely floored by them, they also worried me . There was no way I was going to be able to “portion control” with these guys around. Jugalbandi’s post on these cookies further added to the dilemma. I have never seen cookies look so beautiful…..
    http://veggiefoodist.blogspot.com/2008/06/world-peace-cookies-pizza-and-rainbow.html

  34. Zlamushka on June 23, 2008 11:44 am

    fantastic entry. You always have so many nice words for your blogging friends. It felt nice to read this post. Thank you very much for participating again.

  35. Kaykat on June 24, 2008 3:58 pm

    Heyyy, I like your wonky log! :)

    And I agree, Nupur rocks, she really does.

    And you bandits rock too - pretty amazing how well you’ve managed this fundraiser for Bri.

  36. sunshinemom on June 24, 2008 7:05 pm

    Truly Scrumptious! The cookies look really crisp!

  37. Raaga on June 26, 2008 3:45 am

    I’m seeing these everywhere… I have to try :-)

  38. Suganya on June 29, 2008 8:20 pm

    Gorgeous photos. I love the polka dots napkin :)

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