Sin-Free Chocolate Chews

The good folks at King Arthur Flour, who fill the Baker's Catalogue® with so many good things to bake, call these lusciously decadent, deep dark chocolate cookies, 'sin-free'. In actuality they are low fat, but anything this good can't possibly be free of sin.

These are very easy to make, the only caution I would proffer, is plan ahead as the batter requires chilling before it is ready to handle for baking. Directions call for 3 hours or up to overnight in the fridge. I went with a hair less than 3 hours as I hadn't read those words of instruction when perusing the recipe. I'll just have to make them again (wonderful to have a legitimate excuse for more) to see if chilling longer produces more cookies. The recipe says the yield is fourteen big (3 1/2") cookies. My yield was 9. An ample amount, to be sure, as I was serving them for dessert with freshly churned strawberry frozen yogurt (thank you, Heidi Swanson and David Lebovitz). One cookie apiece was fine and I've enough left over to satisfy my chocolate urge for a few days.

Chocolate Chews

2 1/4 cups (9 oz) confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder ( I didn't use any)
1 cup cocoa powder (Dutch-process or natural)
3 large egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk together the sugar, salt, espresso powder, and cocoa. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, stir together the egg whites and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the egg whites and mix at low speed of an electric mixer for 2 minutes. The batter will seem dry at first, but will become shiny and smooth as it mixes. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the batter for 3 hours or up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Thoroughly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. (I only needed one for my 9 cookie yield). Drop the dough in ping pong sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.
©2006 the King Arthur Flour Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

While on the subject of King Arthur, check out their European-Style Artisan Flour. A wonderful blend of wheats for producing crusty hearth loaves. Check out the recipes at the King Arthur website. I ordered a couple of bags of the Artisan Flour recently to use for some everyday bread but found a wonderful recipe for a Tuscan-Style Coffeecake on the back of the bag. The rich dough with a tight, yet tender crumb, is sweetened with a filling of dates and raisins and for an added crunch treat, toasted walnuts and I just had to go over the top with the addition of some dried citrus. This is a fine bread to serve at tea time or with morning coffee. It toasts nicely, too.

Tuscan Style Coffee Cake

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.

Book Nook

June was a good reading month. Lots of favorite authors, as well as new ones, kept me glued to the printed page.

Nora Roberts . . . . . . . . . . Irish Born Trilogy

Born in Fire; Born in Ice; Born in Shame

Khaled Hasseini . . . . . . . . A Thousand Splendid Suns

Michael Ondaatje. . . . . . . Divisadero

Michael Connelly. . . . . . . The Overlook

Ariana Franklin. . . . . . . . .Mistress of the Art of Death

Elizabeth Berg . . . . . . . . . Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Mohsin Hamid. . . . . . . . . .The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Nicole Mones . . . . . . . . . . .The Last Chinese Chef