Cake Batter & Crumbs

Triple Chocolate Cookies - Ellie Krieger

What's better than a chocolate cookie?  A chocolate cookie with three kinds of chocolate in it!

And what's even better than that? A triple chocolate cookie that's even healthier for you!

When I was flipping through Ellie Krieger's book The Food You Crave, I knew I had to make these. I love anything with chocolate in it, and to know that these are a healthy food, made it all the more appealing.

Dark chocolate is actually quite good for you. It's rich in antioxidants (surprisingly 8 times the number found in strawberries!) and has been proven to keep your heart and cardiovascular system running smoothly by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. This recipe uses both dark and milk chocolate to give a nice sweet and not bitter flavor. Combine that with the whole wheat flour, and you've got a quite a healthy and yummy cookie! Even my snoopy husband who won't touch dark chocolate or whole wheat flour  found these quite tasty.

All things in moderation though. I found myself wanting to eat a bunch of these all at once. That's how good they are!

Triple Chocolate Cookies
The Food You Crave and Online

Makes 2 dozen cookies

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
1/4 teaspoon salt, optional
1/3 cup dark chocolate (2 ounces) coarsely chopped
1/3 cup milk chocolate (2 ounces) coarsely chopped
2/3 cup chopped pecans, optional
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mash together the butter and sugars with a fork until well combined. Add the oil and egg and beat until creamy. Mix in the vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in the dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and the pecans and mix well. Using a tablespoon, scoop the batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack to cool.

Nutrition Information
Nutritional Analysis per Cookie	Calories: 108
Total Fat: 6 grams	Saturated Fat: 2.5 grams
Protein: 1 gram	Carbohydrates: 13 grams
Fiber: 1 gram

Excellent!!!!

I wanted to send a huge thank you to Steph from A Whisk And A Spoon for passing on to me me the E for Excellent award! I am so honored!!! This community of culinary bloggers always amazes and inspires me and it feels great to know that others out there enjoy reading my blog as much as I do theirs.

I also don't let many people in my personal life know about my blog. It's like my little secret. Only my very closest family and friends know about my little secret. I still remember the first time I let a co-worker know about it. Even though she was really interested and thought it was pretty great, I'm sure my face was all red... you never know how people will react when you tell them, "Yeah, I write about everything I bake and probably take around 30-40 photos of each dish too." Yikes!

So now, for passing this little award on to someone else, I'd like to give it to someone who's blog I read all the time. I love your recipes, writing style, and photos. So, Gigi, of Gigi Cakes, I give your blog an E for Excellent!

The Great Fruitcake Experience of 2008

Happy Birthday Fruitcake! I know, I know, it's not the holidays... there isn't even any snow on the ground here or Christmas carols being sung. So, why am I making a fruitcake then?? For my dad's birthday of course! From what I've observed fruitcake usually falls into one of two categories: you either love it or hate it. My dad, falls into the love it category and the rest of our family, including me, hates the stuff.

I've promised him a fruitcake for a while now, and I never got around to making it over the holidays so I thought I'd make it for his birthday. This is my first fruitcake ever, so I didn't know what to expect. I followed a recipe from Allrecipes.com for a boiled fruitcake. Basically you cook all the ingredients on the stovetop and then bake in pans. I started by soaking my dried fruits overnight in some spiced rum. They smelled really good! And, I have to say that the batter was DELICIOUS. I'm not sure what happened inside the oven that turned the scrumptious mildly-spiced batter into your typical fruitcake flavor, but it happened. I you like fruitcake, this isn't a problem of course!

I'm also not sure how I ended up with so much batter, but the recipe says to use an 8" round pan. I had batter for at least two of those, so I decided to use a pretty bundt pan that I stole borrowed from my mom. The pan is dark and heavy, and I think that might be the reason the cake got a little dry on the outside. I dropped back the temperature and cooking time, anticipating that might happen, but still ended up with a rather hard crust.

My dad said he really liked the cake. (Although he is my father and is probably biased. Thanks, dad if you're reading this!) He mentioned that it was a tad dry, but is getting moister as it sits. And, since there's no one else fighting to eat fruitcake at the house, he can let it sit for a good while! I baked the cake a week prior to his birthday. A couple of weeks would have been better I suppose. Also, I faithfully brushed a mixture of brandy and rum on the outside of the cake each day and then sealed it back up. I later jokingly asked my dad if he got a buzz from the cake due to the amount of alcohol I used. To which he replied "no, but that would explain why my tongue gets numb each time I eat a slice." Oh dear!

Boiled Fruitcake
Allrecipes.com

2 cups chopped dried mixed fruit 1 cup roughly chopped glace cherries 1/4 cup candied mixed citrus peel 1/2 cup chopped walnuts 1 1/2 cups white sugar

3/4 cup butter 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon mixed spice 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 2 2/3 cups sifted self-rising flour 2 eggs

 

	Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160 degrees C). Line one 8x3 inch round cake tin with parchment paper.
	In a medium saucepan, combine mixed fruit, cherries, citrus peel, walnuts, sugar, butter, milk, mixed spice, and baking soda. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
	Stir in flour and eggs. Pour into the prepared pan. Wrap outside of pan with brown paper or newspaper.
	Bake at 325 degrees F (160 degrees C) for 40 minutes, then reduce temperature to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), and continue to baking cake for 1 1/2 hours. Remove cake from oven, and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack, remove paper, and cool completely. Cake can be stored for up to 6 months wrapped in foil and in an airtight tin.