Chocolate Crinkles

Here’s a recipe I’ve been wanting to try for some time but only just got round to a few days ago. It looked easy and sounded yummy so I thought I’d try making it for a friend’s birthday. I got it from the Sunday Times a couple of months back, where it had been adapted from Anita Chu’s Field Guide to Cookies.

As it turns out, it was easy to follow. And the crinkles did taste nice, though I would have preferred them with a little more sugar. (I did however keep the recommended amount of sugar in my adaptation of the recipe below, and you will find out why in Step 6) . Also I think the dark chocolate I used wasn’t dark enough (I used 55% cocoa Equatoriale, so try to use something with a slightly higher cocoa content).

I got my husband to try a piece, and asked “How is it? Too salty right? Not sweet enough right?” And after chewing on it for a bit (pun intended), he said, “Tastes fine to me.” Haha. But when I asked if he would want me to make it again, he said, “I’d rather you make the chocolate mendiants again!” =) Ah wells.

Still, it’s worth a try if you want a simple chocolate pastry to serve at parties or give as a gift. Plenty folks in the blogosphere seem to really like it.

So here it is, my adaptation of the recipe from the Sunday Times article which adapted it from Anita Chu’s Field Guide to Cookies.

Ingredients:

170g dark chocolate (>=60% cocoa)
85g non-salted butter
1 tbsp brandy (optional) (I used Kahlua because I had some on hand)
185g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
115g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (Nielsen Massey Vanilla from Shermay’s is great, but very expensive)
1/2 tsp sea salt
Icing sugar

Directions:

1. Place chocolate, butter and brandy in a metal or heat-resistant glass bowl, and set over a pot of simmering water. The bottom of the bowl should not touch the water. Stir till evenly melted and set aside to cool.

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside.

3. Using a mixer, beat the sugar and eggs until thick and smooth. Add vanilla and melted chocolate and mix until combined. Add flour and cocoa mixture and salt and mix until combined.

4. Cover mixing bowl with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours till dough is firm enough to scoop out.

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5. Pre-heat oven to 170degC. Take mixing bowl out of fridge and let dough soften slightly while oven preheats.

6. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Scoop out generous tablespoonsful of dough, roll into 1-inch balls, roll balls in icing sugar, and place on cookie sheet about 4cm apart. If you don’t use up the dough at one go, put the unused dough back in the fridge.

*I am very cross that the Straits Times article omitted the bit about rolling the balls of dough in icing sugar!! It was only after I had made the crinkles and surfed the net a little that I realized all crinkle recipes called for the crinkles to be covered in icing sugar. You should do it – it will add a good and needed sweetness to the crinkles, and make them look prettier too.

**The article said to space the cookies 3cm apart, but they do spread a fair bit in the oven and I had several cookies welded together, so I recommend a little more space between. For some reason the crinkles in the article still looked very round after baking, but crinkles shouldn’t look like that.

7. Bake 10-12 minutes till tops are cracked. Let cookies cool on cookie sheet for five minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

8. Store cookies in airtight container.

Packaged and ready to go =) (Don’t you love the cute ribbon from Daiso? And the French words actually make sense! What a rarity. And on a side note, I haveta say that Daiso’s stuff is just getting better and better. And oh how I love that everything’s just $2…)