Hope you’re having a good weekend, and continuing to enjoy summer. It’s been warm and smoky here, so being inside baking works out well.
This weekend I taught two classes. Both were really fun. One was a 1/2 class on Madeleines. We did traditional lemon with a bit of honey, and also savory. They had finely grated Parmesan cheese and an assorted of herbs. There’s just something about those little cakes that hit’s the spot.
On Saturday I taught a Scandinavian Baking Class. Wow! What a day. During the covid time, I taught this over Zoom with Jacqui from Fika in Three Lakes, WI. It was sort of TV style. Yesterday we made two types of yeasted pastry and the wonderful Almond cake. We were busy all day, and had a great time together. The day was rich in cardamom!
Today I made the cookies for our bake-a-long. I didn’t seem to have any black cocoa, but I do have a cocoa that’s very very dark from CocoaBarry. For the natural cocoa I used good old Hershey’s unsweetened. I made 1/2 of a batch and had about 16 cookies. Mine weighed about 50ish grams.
Instead of macadamia nuts, I used Marcona almonds. I ran a knife over them to cuts them into bits, not too small as David suggested in the recipe. I just used milk chocolate chips instead of white, and I added some dark chocolate chips for the semisweet. They seem kind of close, right? My butter was a cool room temperature, and did fine.
The bake time was exactly the same, and I did use the spatula to tap down the cookies. I’m not sure they really needed it, but I’m a rule follower! (until I’m not!)
Gary and I split a cookie with coffee this morning. It was very chocolaty - but that’s the point! It was very good. I would make these again, especially for a cookie table containing other types of cookies. The soft center with the crisp edge was my style.
I’m looking forward to reading your comments about your bake. Enjoy!