Bittersweet Decadence Cookies by Alice Medrich

The Teen had four friends for a sleepover recently and before they headed out to meet friends late afternoon, I asked them to pick a cookie recipe from my brand new copy of the paperback cookbook “Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich”. I figured some freshly baked cookies would be an attractive option for a midnight snack. They opted for a recipe entitled “Bittersweet Decadence Cookies” and added, “no nuts please”… What is it about kids and juvenile adults who can’t handle nuts in their cookies and baked goods???

I read through the recipe and confirmed that we had all of the necessary ingredients and started to bake. This was so INCREDIBLY EASY to make, a feature of many recipe books these days that appear to “dummify” everything, but if they turn out delicious cookies, why not? You don’t even need a mixer, but you DO NEED some excellent chocolate. I was a bit concerned that not using any nuts when the whole recipe seemed to hinge on being bound around nuts, so I doubled the dough recipe, made half without nuts, and the other half with nuts. The first two photos up top are with nuts, the bottom three photos are without nuts. Several of the photos were taken the morning after as the evening shots didn’t turn out too nicely. :)

The recipe is Ms Medrich’s. I only altered the chocolate used to make use of what we had on hand. Combine 1/4 cup of unbleached or bleached all-purpose flour with 1/4 tsp. baking powder and 1/8 tsp. salt and set aside. Melt 8oz. of dark chocolate (60%) with 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter in a medium sized heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. I used some Callebaut chocolate mixed in with a bar of 70% Valrhona with orange rind. Stir occasionally until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat. Next, take another heatproof bowl and crack two large eggs into it. Add 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tsp. of pure vanilla extract. Whisk this gently over the simmering water until the mixture is lukewarm. Stir the egg mixture into the warm chocolate mixture, then stir in the flour and if using, 2 cups of roughly chopped walnuts or pecans.

Onto cookie sheets lined with parchment of baking paper or silpat silicone mats, drop a heaping tablespoon worth of the batter, placing 12 cookies on each standard sized baking sheet. Bake these in a pre-heated 350F oven and turn the pans around or change racks to ensure even cooking. It will take roughly 12 minutes to cook the cookies, give or take a minute or two. They should look dry on the surface but still be a bit moist/chewy in the center. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool completely before removing them from the silpat mats or baking paper.

Thankfully, the nutless ones turned out BEAUTIFULLY. I can’t imagine how so few ingredients, so little flour (but so much chocolate!) would yield such scrumptious cookies. They were a bit like disks of incredibly rich and chocolatey flat brownies with that classic cookie crust. The ones with nuts (for Mrs. MM and myself) were even better in my opinion (the original recipe as it was meant to be cooked). The nuts helped cut the richness of the chocolate while providing a layer of texture and bite. While the recipe says they make roughly 30-36 per batch, we ended up with roughly 60 cookies that evening, but by the next morning, there were less than 20 left to photograph. And that was before the Teens woke up for breakfast! I strongly recommend this easy and delicious cookie recipe, and look forward to trying others from Ms. Medrich’s cookbook. Think of these as sophisticated grown up crinkles without the cloying dusting of powdered sugar. And yes, the quality of chocolate used DOES REALLY make a difference.

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest

48 Responses

  1. the crust on that is breath-taking — too bad i finished off the last of my good chocolate and macadamias on a couple recipes of “world peace” cookies.
    Decadent is right — yum!

  2. This is one of the best looking cookies I’ve seen and I’ll definitely be making these with macadamia!

  3. i don’t know how you can make such yummy cookies and stay on your diet at the same time. only superman can do that.

  4. I’m a big fan of Jacques Torres chocolate for baking. :D Found out the hard way about the importance of quality ingredients. I ran out of my good vanilla and used a cheapo brand for my chocolate chip cookies. Ugh- I really should have known better.

  5. Patricia, mostly the chocolates are gifts from friends and family overseas or who travel and bring them back for us. But you can get good chocolate at baking places like Sweet Haven, or other wholesalers. On a recent visit, Sweet haven had lots of stock of Callebaut, and possibly Valrhona if I recall correctly. Helosie, they are cookies, not bread, and I don’t sell them… Clarissa, try them with good chocolate, the difference in price is small, the quality noticeable. bon igot, sweet haven or other wholesale bakery ingredients suppliers, check out my post from years ago “Baking Ingredients 101” I think… Lois, I have to admit, it isn’t easy to look at these and not consume several of them at a time! Linda, I think they would be wonderful with macadamias…

  6. Market Man, Have you ever tried making your own chocolate from cacao? We have been making it for over a year now and the results are amazing! so far we have not mastered the tempering process, but it is just fine as long as it is kept in the fridge. this chocolate would probably be great in those cookies, as it i 75% cacao.

  7. ShackelMom, no, I haven’t tried making out own chocolate… but how cool is that? We have a few cacao trees on a property in Bicol… so I guess it isn’t out of the realm of possibilities…

  8. “What is it about kids and juvenile adults who can’t handle nuts in their cookies and baked goods???”
    – Ouch! I’m not a kid anymore, not even a juvenile adult, but I never did like nuts, not in my chocolate, not in any baked goods. I even spit out nuts from store-bought brownies haha.

  9. Diet???

    Sour cherries, cranberries, dried strawberries, a bit of chili…the options are endless for decadent adult goodies…

    THANK YOU!!!!!

  10. MM, hope ShackelMom can be a guest contributor in your blog. I’m so curious to read about her chocolate-making ventures! Or maybe I should just wait for you to make your own :-) I love how folks can actually make stuff that most others just buy off the shelves!

  11. “What is it about kids and juvenile adults who can’t handle nuts in their cookies and baked goods???” – how surprisingly true as I usually skip the nuts whenever it’s combined with any type of baked good (unless it’s really, really, reaaaaaally needed!). I think it has something to do with the nuts toning down the sweetness of the dessert!

    BTW, might I also suggest sweetcraft for those who are looking for quality chocolates. Not affiliated with them in any way but that’s one of my top choices for baking ingredients (they even have phyllo dough and those downright dandy pie molds with removable bottom pans!) it’s located along Boni avenue in Mandaluyong City! Great post MM! will definitely try this out! :)

  12. Owww, that’s funny, and here I am 54 years old.. and I love nuts (pecans, almond, macadamia, etc) in my cookies, in snacks (trailmix) and my family and I even eat with our meal (Pinoy’s garlic-peanuts). I also sprinkle nuts on my salad…whoa… maybe I belong to the younger generation…hehhhehe, in taste buds.

  13. I love this cookie cookbook. Luuuurve. I’ve made about 6 kinds of cookies from it, and all of them have been delicious! I especially love the ultrathin chocolate chip one (under crispy, I think). I made goldies this weekend with chocolate in the middle and Benjie said they came out like homemade, more delicious milanos. And I love the alfajores recipe–those were also a hit around here.

  14. whoah…MM by looking at those delectable cookies with or without nuts makes me cheat with my diet today. :D! i nibble a slice of a brownie that sits in my fridge. ssooooo tempting…!

  15. @shackelmom i love your idea! I would love to learn how to do that. Chocolates from our own cacao. It’s going to be a real treat. I hope you can share your ideas about it. I have been wanting to explore tablea, aside from using it on cakes. This is a challenge!

  16. I just woke up.. Now im craving for cookies…waaaaaah… not a good thing to read your post early morning…have to check Cookie Corner if they have something similar to this…

  17. A bit of recent trivia, Bernard Callebaut chocolatier extraordinaire started his company in Calgary, Alberta 27 years ago and expanded to other Canadian provinces as well as in the USA. He had gone into receivership late last year from a bad real estate investment which he acquired for larger business expansion. He was bought out by a former business partner who retained the Chocolatiere Bernard Callebaut name. This week he lost a legal battle when the new owners accused him of stealing chocolates and moulds while the company was in receivership. Lesson here is to stay artisanal ensuring the quality of your product and not venture too much into business expansion, the risk as manifested cost him losing his own name as a brand.

  18. Medrich also has a fantastic brownie recipe – so simple to make but comes out out so sinfully delicious. All the fat comes from butter and not oil like other recipes/mixes call for.

  19. “What is it about kids and juvenile adults who can’t handle nuts in their cookies and baked goods???” – well, i used to stay away from nuts too, as i’ve read articles before that eating nuts can cause acne (and i’ve also seen write-ups contradicting this, so..).

    i love bittersweet chocolate. and i like the flat disk cookies without nuts. :) indeed, they look rich in taste. hope to get to try some. :)

  20. I made this exact recipe using locally made chocolates and it was good but lacks that angels singing from the heavens effect. Must be because of all the fillers in the local chocolates.

    The second time I made it I used really good chocolate (Scharfenberger) and used the teeny small bottle of authentic Mexican Vanilla (not the one with the Tonka Bean filler) that I got as a gift and I thought I died and went to heaven.

    Alice is the Queen of Chocolate in my book!

  21. Went to NY on vacation last week and a cousin gave us a whole box of Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate in them were not exactly chips but more like a whole layer of thin/thick chocolate slabs! The quality of the chocolate was very very good and truly melts in the mouth. Saraaaap! Even the packaging was beautiful. We are rationing the few remaining cookies so we can enjoy them longer. :)

  22. I love baking and eating AM’s Bittersweet Decadence Cookies!!! I’ve been making this for so long but not often because I can eat A LOT of these in one sitting. My taste bud says “Yes, yes!”, while my hips says “NOOOOO!!!” Not so good with my diet.

    I’m with you on that good chocolate versus cheap chocolate. Some people cannot tell the difference but as a baker the smell of good chocolate is superb and the way it melts is so much silkier than the cheap variety, if I could swim in a pool filled with melted chocolate I would :D

    I got to get to Sweetcraft one of this days. I’ve read and heard a lot of good stuff about it.

    I usually get my Valrhona chocolates from Bacchus in Rockwell. I seldom go there so when I do get there I hoard their chocolates like a crazy person. I swear by Valrhona Dutched process cocoa powder, I used it in every recipe that calls for DP cocoa powder and it taste splendid.

  23. Give me macadamia, walnuts and pecans anytime! I actually think nuts are the highlights of any cookie or baked good since they are probably one of the more expensive ingredient in the recipe.

    Raisin and dried fruits, on the other hand, I don’t care for. I give those bits to my mom or sibling.

  24. we live maybe 200m away from sweet craft,. the store was a heaven for bakers and pastry lover, but oh my, the price was incredibly rocket price high

  25. i was smiling when i read your post. my teens too detest eating nuts even in ice cream. so whenever we buy ice cream we buy 2 liters, one with nuts or anything crunchy and the other plain like vanilla or chocolate. then they will let us buy sprinkles. damn it!!

  26. The cookies look delicious!

    I thought of purchasing “Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy…” but I’ve tried several recipes in “Pure Dessert” by Ms. Medrich and was disappointed. I made Olive Oil & Sherry Pound Cake 3 times, each time thinking I did something wrong. But, no, I followed the recipe exactly as written. I’ll try the recipe you shared before investing in her cookie book.

  27. Thanks for the recipe! I’m a home baker (just for myself, friends, and officemates; I don’t take orders or sell) and I love finding new recipes and experimenting. This is definitely on my baking lineup this weekend!

    PS You’re right about the nuts and the age factor. My kids hate them so I always have to bake a batch without nuts, then the remaining with nuts. Walnuts, macadamias, and hazelnuts are the best!

  28. I don’t know what else to say but I would like to eat some of those just about now!! Your pics are just too delicious!

  29. Hi,MM. Tried the recipe–they were really good but my cookies were so flat like crisps. Wonder what went wrong?

  30. Chinky, was the chocolate still warm when you added in the egg mixture? It should have been and the batter would seize up a bit, and get pretty thick and easy to mold into cookies with tablespoons. Perhaps you could have overmixed everything? Or the egg mixture was over or under heated? When you make the cookies (I am assuming you did the version with nuts), you don’t flatten the batter when they hit the pan, I just put them as they fell…

  31. Thanks, MM. The chocolate mixture was still warm but the egg mixture may not have been warm enough. Nevertheless, it was still good especially with the nuts. I did half without nuts for my boys,too. Will try this again.

  32. hmmm just by reading the procedure, no wonder the results turn out to be amazing. It is a cross between a regular cookie and a brownie. Normal cookie recipes irregardless of the chocolate component used does not turn out as the way you had it in your cookies. Maybe because the butter was not creamed together with the sugar but rather it employs the normal brownie procedure of melting the butter with the chocolate. Baking is all about measurements and processes. One single mistake and you are doomed. That is maybe why these cookies look way lot similar with chocolate crinkles, since chocolate crinkles requires also the butter to be melted with the cocoa. Anyway marketman, have you ever experimented with ghee? A friend of mine told me that he uses ghee for his cakes and the results are divine. Isn’t it more heavier than normal butter because it is pure vegetable or animal fat? and what makes ghee any different from lard? hmmm intersting isn’t it? since you always feature butter and lard, why don’t you do a feature also on ghee and make an experiment and compare the results.

  33. Are you still using your G10 or a new camera? You really take good food photography irregardless of camera model. You make us want to grab those cookies and we can smell them by just looking at the pictures! Mmmmmm! And we know that nothing was styled or fake as in other food photos in magazines.Always the real thing with you! :)

  34. OMG, this looks so good! I haven’t visited in a while. I was actually searching for callebaut chocolate retailer/supplier in manila and google brought me to this entry , which I am glad I found. I will definitely try this when I get hold of good chocolate and that will probably be on my next vacay in manila which is 6 weeks away!!!

BLOG CATEGORIES

MARKETMAN ON INSTAGRAM

Subscribe To Updates

No spam, only notifications about new blog posts.