Following on from my post on KenyaBuzz Weekly, I took the Sicao dark chocolate disks home: they were pretty good! They were a little whitish, which doesn't affect their taste or cooking performance. A few of the disks were stuck together: obviously the bags were stored somewhere too warm. This is not the best baking chocolate in the world, i.e. not Barry Callebaut's top end product, but definitely very good and worth cooking with (and snacking on, of course!). I kept the melted-together disks to use later, in a mousse or ganache. I made chocolate chip cookies with the disks and they were great. The disks were larger than my recipe called for, so unless you are making really large cookies, you may want to chop them a bit.



Try this classic American recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies


CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Makes about 50 small cookies, 25 larger ones

¼ pound (½ cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup dark-brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
¾ teaspoon vanilla
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (about 6 ounces) chocolate chips (most recipes call for semi-sweet, I used the Sicao dark)


Preheat the oven to 350º/180 º/gas mark 4-5 and grease some cookie sheets. Cream the butter then gradually add both sugars, beating until light and smooth. Beat in the egg and the vanilla. Put the flour, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and beat with a wire whisk. Add the dry mix gradually to the butter mixture, blending well but not over-beating. Add the chocolate chips and stir in. Drop by teaspoonfuls (or use an ice-cream scoop if you want really big cookies) onto the cookie sheets. The cookies should be about 1 to 2 inches apart, depending how big you make them. Bake for 8 to 17 minutes, depending on the size. The cookies should be golden brown but still soft.



Baker's Tip: The dough for these cookies improves with age. Store in the refrigerator (up to three days) covered tightly with plastic wrap and scoop out as needed. The dough will be drier and a bit harder to work with, but they'll taste better.


For information about this recipe or other baking questions, contact Lee at info@bellalunakitchen.com