Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book - Bruce Weinstein [34]
3. Remove the beaters and stir in the prepared flour mixture with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir just until thick and lush if still slightly grainy—the batter should be the same color it was before the flour was added; it should not lighten.
4. Dust a clean, dry work surface with flour, then gather the dough into a ball, place it on the work surface, and press down lightly with your hands, just until it looks like a flattened basketball. Dust a rolling pin lightly with flour, dust the top of the dough itself with a fine film of flour, then roll it out to a large circle, about 16 inches in diameter and 1/4 inch thick (see Note).
5. Using a 2-inch cookie cutter or a glass with a 2-inch-diameter lip, cut out round cookie disks, then transfer them to the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 1 inch apart. If desired, reroll the dough scraps, dusting lightly with flour, to create more cookies.
6. Bake for 4 minutes, then rotate the sheets top to bottom and back to front. Continue baking for about 4 more minutes, or until the cookies are firm and crisp. Cool on the baking sheets for 1 minute, then gently transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool. If baking additional batches, allow the baking sheets to cool to room temperature, then spray them with nonstick spray again before proceeding.
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NOTE: For crackerlike cookies, roll the dough even thinner, to about 1/8-inch thickness. Reduce the baking time by 1 minute.
Recommended storage
1 week at room temperature
3 months in the freezer
Customize It!
Make sandwich cookies using the white cream filling from the Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookies (page 77). Add 1 teaspoon ground ginger to the filling with the confectioners’ sugar.
Ice the cookies with the white icing in the Black Black and Whites (page 33). Omit the chocolate from the icing and simply make a large batch of the white vanilla icing. Let the iced cookies stand on a wire rack, set over a sheet of wax paper, for about 1 hour, or until the icing has hardened.
CHOCOLATE GINGER SUGAR COOKIES
These cookies look like traditional snickerdoodles, cracked and cakey on the outside, but they’re far softer and more luscious inside, like a sugar cookie enhanced with ginger. They’re best warm, right out of the oven, but you can store them for days if you want to space out your indulgences.
MAKES ABOUT 4 DOZEN COOKIES
13/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
11/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons ground ginger (see Note, page 85)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cool, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus additional for buttering the baking sheets
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1. Position the racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter two large baking sheets; set them aside. Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl until evenly colored; set aside. Finally, mix 1/4 cup of the sugar with 2 teaspoons ginger in a small bowl or a soup dish; set aside.
2. Soften the butter in a large bowl, using an electric mixer at medium speed. Add the remaining 11/4 cups sugar and beat until fluffy and pale yellow, about 1 minute. Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure the first is fully incorporated before adding the second; then beat in the vanilla. Turn off the mixer, add the prepared flour mixture, and beat in at a very low speed just until a fudgy, not sticky, dough forms, about the consistency of soft marzipan.
3. Roll heaping teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls, then roll them in the sugar/ginger mixture, giving them a fine, light coating. It’s easier to make all the balls you need first, clean and dry your hands, and then roll the balls in the sugar mixture—that way, you’re not going back and forth and getting the sugar all over your dough-covered hands. Place the balls on the prepared sheets, spacing them about 11/2 inches