Ahh Sunday. With the laziness and the stained sweat pants and the greasy hair stowed away in a knot. Gotta love it. That and the fact that you actually have time to fool around in the kitchen (not with your sex partner but with a spatula. Sorry, just realised that it might be potato-potaaartow to some people…), anyway, found this amazing looking but not quite as sexy sounding recipe on one of my favourite foodie blogs called 101 Cookbooks (maybe it’s a tiny bit because the blogger is also called Heidi). It’s for  “Chocolate Puddle Cookies” and is very simple but still has enough little dangers to keep you challenged. The “cakes” are basically crispy-chewy chocolate macaroon-like cookies but with no flour whatsoever. The batter consists mainly of cocoa, powdered sugar, egg whites and nuts. But be careful to follow the recipe or else you’ll end up with very very hard marengue like cookies. (as I did the second time I tried it and got overzealous with the cooking time).

The only changes I made to Heidi’s recipe were in the ingredients and not the process, so here are the ingredients I used, in case you want to try them out with her instructions:

Chocolate Puddle Cookies (1/4 of the original recipe ~ 5 large cookies or 10 small ones)

• 75 grams roasted, peeled and coarsely chopped hazelnuts (I love the smell of them, the look of them, the taste of them and they go sooo much better with chocolate of any kind than the slightly bitter walnuts)
• 110 grams powdered sugar
• A small 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1 tsp grated Nescafé (to enhance the chocolate flavour)
• 15 grams Valrhona cocoa (not used in the pictures above – there I used regular Dutch cocoa which was very nice but not nearly as dark and intense as Valrhona)

Whenever I’m travelling, this blog works as my cookbook. So imagine my surprise when I wanted to suggest a nice chocolate recipe for my niece’s baptism in Stockholm and I couldn’t find one single chocolate recipe here! And it’s not like I haven’t been yapping on about the endless pleasures of the cocoa persuasion, but somehow I’ve managed to avoid actually putting that into action. So sorry! Luckily I’ve found just the right recipe to make amends with on a very pretty sister blog called Cannelle et Vanille: French Chocolate Macaroons.

I have attempted to make macaroons before with mediocre results, as this mugshot shows. But when I found this recipe I instantly knew I had the key to perfection (with a few cracks and dents;-). There was just something about the details concerning the egg white and the fact that there are so many different delicious looking macaroons on that blog that made me trust the writer 100%. And it really paid off. I made the macaroons following the recipe as religiously as possible. The only change I made was in the ganache where I used dark chocolate (Lindt  70%) instead of milk chocolate and replaced the passion fruit with raspberries.

Raspberry Ganache (makes just the right amount for the macaroons)

• 100 grams dark chocolate (70%)
• 50 grams (frozen) raspberries
• 20 grams cream
• 15 grams butter
• A splash of rhum
• A blob or two of glucose
• A pinch of salt

Start by chopping the chocolate into nice little bits and set them aside in a bowl that can stand some heat and place a sieve on top. Then heat the cream and the whole raspberries in a saucepan while you mash the berries into the cream. When the berries have dissolved as much as possible and the mixture is slowly starting to boil, take the saucepan from the heat and pour the cream through the sieve and over the chocolate. You only want to get rid of the raspberry seeds, so make sure that when you have, you immediately start stirring the melting chocolate into the pink cream. When all of the chocolate has melted, add a splash of rhum and a pinch of salt to deepen the flavour and sweeten it with some glucose (or syrup). And that’s it. Now pour the mixture into a piping bag and leave it in the fridge for five minutes before squeezing it out onto your baked and cooled macaroons. I promise you, these are the best treats ever and you won’t believe you’ve actually made them yourself!

The texture and the flavour were spot on and the look very nice  if you like the rustic and not French-nazi-patisserie chef-style. But I would like to learn how to make all of the macaroons the same size and without cracks in the surface.

NOTE: I just attended a patisserie class last night (May 5th) at La Glace in Copenhagen. There we learnt, that the cracks can be avoided by, among other things, making sure the almond-cocoa-sugar mixture is completely even and mixed, before adding the meringue.

I wish this recipe were my invention, I really do, but sadly this stroke of genius happened to someone else. Apple and macaroon cake with almond slices. The crushed macaroons in the mixture render the cake perfectly chewy and the surface lovely and golden. Here are ten (a nice number however incorrect it may turn out to be) easy steps to making this delight:

Apple-Macaroon Cake

• 4 egg whites
• 50 grams sugar
• 250 grams macaroons (in Denmark: the Karen Volf kind)
• 75 grams flour
• 125 grams butter,  melted
• 2-3 thinly sliced apples
• Almond slivers 

Beat the egg whites and add the sugar just before they become completely stiff (meringue texture). Crush the macaroons, add flour & melted butter and mix it with the apple slices. Fold the meringue gently into the apple mixture and pour the whole lot into a greased regular size tin (22 cm * 6,5 cm) lined with paper BOTH in the bottom and on the sides as the mixture turns really sticky in the oven. Sprinkle with the almonds and bake at 160 degrees for an hour or until it turns golden and doesn’t stick. Leave to cool and serve with a mixture of creme fraiche, whipped cream and a bit of cinnamon.