Seasonality isn't just for fruits and vegetables, people. Anyone who's ever picked up a cooking magazine or turned on PBS on a Saturday afternoon knows there is a seasonality to recipes and when they enter our collective consciousness. And I'm not talking about the few viable versions of a red, white, and blueberry cake showing up for the Fourth of July.
Without a doubt, the time of year that has the most distinct pattern to me is the holidays through turning into the New Year. Here's how it usually goes: November means Turkey recipes and fatty, thick, fall dishes. December issues are loaded sweets of almost every description. In January, we get the inevitable "light" dishes and snacks to help with those all-important resolutions. And of course, what would February be without... chocolate?
Ah yes... chocolate. Though it's hard to escape for most of the year, just try to get through February's 28 days without reading one chocolate recipe. I can't be sure of this, but I bet it's easier to avoid Guy Fieri during Food Network's prime time programming block. And trust me... that f**king guy is EVERYwhere.
So, is there anything new under the sun that can be done with chocolate? Yes, I thought... as long as you don't use the old expected chocolate in the old expected way. It was in that spirit that I came home one day in February and, purely on a whim, got out the trusty black cocoa commenced to mixing up a batch of something that was not quite, but might be confused with, chocolate.
Black cocoa, as you know, is one of those elusive ingredients that nearly everyone (well, every American, anyway) has tasted, but can't identify. It's Dutch-process cocoa powder that is super alkalized, to the point that it is midnight black and has only a passing resemblance to chocolate. So... if it's not especially chocolaty, why use it? Because if you're a fan of Oreos™ or any of their bastard cousins, you're a fan of black cocoa.
Black cocoa gives Oreos™ not just their dark dark coloring, but also their distinctive strong, almost "chalky" taste. It gives those "chocolate fudge" cake mixes that blackness that we expect and gives Hostess Cupcakes™ the right contrast of black cake to white filling. True, the description of the taste doesn't sound especially appealing -- but give just one taste of batter to a true fan of the flavor and their eyes will widen in awe. The impossible will seem to have happened: you, making that Oreo™ taste in your very own kitchen!
Since I had used some of my black cocoa in the legendary
World Peace Cookies with slightly less than ideal results, I was determined to try it again in a recipe made for the purpose of using the pitch-black powder. While at work, I ran across a recipe for Faux-Reos (a lovelier Word Combination I had hardly ever heard) on
Baker's Banter, the King Arthur Flour Blog. I read through, and realized I had all the ingredients I needed already at home -- but something didn't seem to add up. When I got home, I compared that recipe to the Faux-Reos recipe I'd read a while back in their excellent book,
The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.
Sure enough, there was a difference. Not in the cookie part... but in the filling! The blog post had a filling made of confectioner's sugar, shortening... and peppermint! Now, I used to eat so many Peppermint Patties that my blood still has a fresh, tingly feeling when the nurse practitioner takes samples at the doctor, but mint Oreos™? No thank you.
The recipe in the book was happily sans peppermint, but... it did seem to require you to use 1/2 envelope of unflavored gelatin. I know what you're thinking, and yes... I DO have a supply gelatin, and NO it is NOT the
Jell-O 1-2-3 stuff I used to rely on so often for dessert in my proto-culinary days.
That said, it just seemed like -- geez -- an awful lot of trouble I guess? It sounds bad when I read it back to myself, but in the interest of experimentation and not having to figure out what to do with the other half envelope of gelatin, I decided to simply use the blog's filling recipe, omitting the peppermint and adding some good vanilla and a swirl of butter to ramp up the taste of the filling.
The cookies themselves were pretty easily made... I used my tiniest cookie scoop and flattened each ball with the bottom of a juice glass dipped in cocoa powder. They baked up to the perfect size, and all pretty much uniform thanks to the scoop. The filling whipped up in no time and turned out to be the perfect flavor.
Would anyone mistake these cookies for the real thing? Not if he had the eyesight God gave Helen Keller... they looked rough and rustic and the filling was pillowy and not at all stiff like the commercial product (though they did set up a little overnight), but the taste -- oh the taste! I had to physically restrain Christopher from eating up the cookie dough -- it may not have really tasted like chocolate, but in February, you get enough of that, like, EVERYwhere else. And capturing childhood in a cookie jar has it's own rewards!
If they gave Pulitzer Prizes for cookbooks, The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion would likely be among their oldest laureates. The basics are there, of course -- wheat bread, cream scones, shortbread, croissants, the perfect yellow cake -- but like a hymnal that ventures into the gems of modern church music, this book has charming and innovative variations and unique concoctions that make a baker sit up and take notice.
Black cocoa powder being as it is a hyper-Dutched version of standard cocoa powder usually far to powerful to use on it's own, needing to be added in small amounts to supplement regular Dutch-process cocoa to give it that je ne sais quoi that every baker wants to wow his audience with. Here, though, it is the only "chocolate" used in the whole recipe, and stands on it's own only because it's relative bitterness is offset by the sweetness of the cookie and filling -- and probably to a large extent because it's the unmistakable taste of Oreos™ that so many of us know and love.
Remember to watch the time when baking these dark chocolate cookies... you won't be able to eyeball them to figure out when they're done since they start out almost black to begin with! Get them to uniform thickness, watch your timer, and always know how accurate your oven temperature is.
Use a cookie scoop to help keep the cookies uniform in size; matching up two halves to make a whole sandwich cookie is SO much easier when you've taken that extra step ahead of time. If you want your filling to be stiffer and more like actual Oreo™ filling, you can also try adding 1 tsp + ¼ heaping tsp unflavored gelatin to 2 Tbsp of cold water and letting it sit for a few minutes, mixing the resulting slurry into the filling. I liked the addition of a Tbsp of salted butter for the richer flavor that both the butterfat and the salt brought to the table. If you want the mint version, crush up a few candy canes or peppermint candies to taste, or simply add a teaspoon or less of peppermint extract -- and maybe leave out the vanilla extract.
This recipe makes about 25 sandwich cookies that keep for 3-5 days at room temperature in an airtight container.
For the cookies:
- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp espresso powder (optional, mainly for use with Dutched cocoa)
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp cold water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup black cocoa or Dutch-process cocoa
For the filling:
- 2 ½ cups confectioners' sugar
- ½ cup vegetable shortening
- 1 Tbsp salted butter (or unsalted with a dash of salt added), room temperature to slightly cool, but still mixable
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons cold water*
*If you're adding the crushed peppermint candy, increase water to 2 Tbsp
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets, or more if you have them.
To make the cookies: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat together the sugar, butter, salt, and espresso powder. That's right; there's no leavening in this recipe, so don't worry that something's been left out.
Beat in the egg, water, and vanilla, then the flour and cocoa. The dough will be very stiff.
Roll or scoop the dough into balls about the size of a chestnut (about 2 level teaspoons). A teaspoon-sized cookie scoop is IDEAL for this job. Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 1½" to 2" between them.
Use the flat bottom of a glass, dipped in cocoa as necessary to prevent sticking, to flatten the cookies to about 1/8" to 3/16" thick. Take a ruler and measure the cookies' thickness; you want to get pretty close to this measurement.
Bake the cookies (in batches if need be) for 18 to 20 minutes. It's important to bake them just the right amount of time; too little, and they won't be crisp; too much, and they'll scorch. Watch them closely at the end of the baking time, and if you start to smell scorching chocolate before the time is up, take them out. When they're done, remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool completely, on a rack or on the pan.
While the cookies are cooling, make the filling: Beat together the sugar, shortening, butter and vanilla. It'll seem very dry at first, but will eventually begin to clump together.
Add the water a little at a time, beating till smooth and spreadable. The filing should be stiff, but not so stiff that you can't flatten it when you sandwich it between the cookies. Adding a little extra confectioners sugar can help stiffen up a too-loose dough.
Place one Tbsp filling in the center of one cookie; again, a teaspoon cookie scoop, slightly heaped, is perfect for this task. Place another cookie atop the filling, and squeeze to distribute the filling evenly. Repeat with the remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
