Super Intense Chocolate Chip Cookies

I see chocolate-related recipes that I want to try all the time, but this recipe for chocolate chip cookies in the New York Times and the related article filled with secrets sounded too good to pass over.  Since the cookies were so large, I halved the recipe and made 9 cookies instead of 18.  I ended up refrigerating the dough for 48 hours; when I pulled it out of the fridge, it was too hard to scoop out, so I let it sit out before molding them by hand.  There seemed to be a huge amount of chocolate in the dough, but since I used discs and not chips, there was a good ratio of cookie-to-chocolate.  I used two percentages of El Rey chocolate discs, 61% and 73.5%.  El Rey chocolate is pretty fruity, so it worked well in the cookies.

The cookies turned out to be tasty and addictive – crispy on the outside, and soft and chewy in the center.  Although I didn’t test to see whether the refrigeration period makes a difference, and vacuum sealing might have the same effect on the dough, the build up to the cookies made them even tastier.

Dolfin Milk Chocolate with Konacha Green Tea

Ingredients: sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, green tea (5%), natural vanilla, emulsifier: soya lecithin. Cocoa solids: 32% min. Milk solids: 20% min. I’ve had some good chocolate/tea experiences, so I had high hopes for this bar. Since it’s milk chocolate, it starts out sweet, and then the tea flavor emerges. It’s floral, and a little bitter, with the brown rice flavor that I associate with green tea. Similar to Dolfin’s dark chocolate with lavender bar, there are small bits that remain after the chocolate has melted, which in this case are pieces of tea. They’re mostly crunchy, but some are like threads. The bar’s too sweet for me, and I dislike the little bits left on my tongue. I think the bar would work better if they’d infused the tea in the milk instead of leaving it in. However, like the other Dolfin bars I’ve tasted, the balance between the ingredients was good; though the aroma of tea was very present, the chocolate dominated taste-wise.

Dolfin Milk Chocolate with Cocoa Beans from Ghana

Ingredients: sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, cocoa beans (10%), natural vanilla, emulsifier: soya lecithin. Cocoa solids: 32% min. Another Dolfin bar, and this one’s a winner.  The chocolate is very sweet and creamy, so the bits of bitter cocoa bean are a good balance.  I think I would prefer darker chocolate, as this is so sweet and milky.  However, unlike other Dolfin bars, there’s nothing odd about this one – chocolate and cocoa beans are a natural pairing.