Archive for November, 2009 « Zoom Yummy – Crochet, Food, Photography

Gorgeous Chocolate Cookies

November 29, 2009 by zoomyummy

If you are into chocolate I have something for you!

Chocolate Cookies – they are wonderful and really full of chocolate!

They are almost more chocolaty than chocolate itself.

Can you imagine?

~~~

To prepare these heavenly Chocolate Cookies you need:

8 ounces (240 grams) chopped semi-sweet chocolate; this amount will be melted

4 tablespoons (56 grams) unsalted butter

2/3 cup (86 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 ounces (150 grams) chopped semi-sweet chocolate

~~~

1. Preheat an oven to 350 F (176 C).

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

3. Chop the chocolate into chunks.

4. In the bowl of your electric mixer mix the sugar…

5. … the eggs and the vanilla extract until light and fluffy (about 4 minutes).

6. While the mixer is doing its job we can melt the chocolate with butter (not all the chocolate, just the first 8 ounces).

You can do this in a bowl placed over a pot of simmering water or in a microwave oven.

Delicious!

I had hard time trying to resist this.

7. Now reduce the speed of the electric mixer to low and add the melted chocolate mixture.

8. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Mix in the flour mixture until just combined.

9. Stir in the chocolate chunks.

You can set some chunks aside to place on top of the cookies.

10. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto the baking sheet.

11. Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes.

Yummy!

This lovely recipe was adapted from marthastewart.com and makes about 12 (3-inch) cookies.

Enjoy dearest friends!

(If you’d like to see more of my posts click this.)

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New Friend… What Are We Going To Call You?

November 25, 2009 by zoomyummy

Look!

Someone new has arrived!

The long awaited and expected friend…

He wasn’t even patient enough to wait until the lights were adjusted properly.

He was so eager to make his first photo shoot and let you see him that he’d literally jumped in front of my camera.

Though he got shy from time to time he was mostly very brave!

We’d finally settled with this pose.

He’s wearing his scarf and the Finnish-style cap in a very fancy manner here.

I love him so much but he still keeps his name a secret…

What do you think his name could be?

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Chocolate Pretzels

November 17, 2009 by zoomyummy

I have experimented a bit today …

The inspiration to make these cookies comes from Martha’s Chocolate Pretzels but I have changed her recipe quite a lot.

These pretzels taste like coffee, chocolate and cinnamon all together.

Quite pleasing combination, hm?

~~~

To make these lovely pretzels you need:

1/4 cup (20 grams) cocoa

4 teaspoons instant coffee

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

10 tablespoons boiling water

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup (135 grams) granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 2/3 cup (220 grams) all-purpose flour

confectioner’s sugar to sprinkle on top

~~~

1. In a small bowl, mix together the instant coffee, cocoa and cinnamon.

(OK, you are right, there’s no cinnamon in the bowl. My brain just doesn’t work so well in the morning and I tend to forget things. I added the cinnamon as the last step.)

2. Pour the boiling water into the bowl and stir thoroughly. Set aside.

3. Put the butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of your electric mixer.

Mix until creamy.

Then add the egg, vanilla extract and salt and mix again.

4. Add the cocoa-coffee-cinnamon mixture and beat slightly.

5. Gradually add flour, and mix until a smooth dough forms.

6. Turn out on a lightly floured counter and form a ball.

Wrap in foil and refrigerate for about one hour.

7. Preheat an oven to 350 F (175 C).

8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

9. Shape the dough into a log and cut it into 18 equal pieces.

Form a small ball from each piece.

Shape the balls into 12-inch-long (30 cm) ropes.

10. Twist each rope into a pretzel shape (I recommend doing this on the baking sheet because it might get a bit awkward to transfer them onto the sheet).

11. Some granulated sugar on top. Here we go…

Bake for 10 minutes.

12. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

If you’d like your cookies a bit more festive you can sprinkle them with some confectioner’s sugar.

These cute and delicious pretzels can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.

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Easy November Sunday

November 16, 2009 by zoomyummy

Oh, how I love the Sundays where there’s basically nothing important to do and you can go anywhere you want and have as much fun as you can.

Today was one of such days.

With a flask of hot coffee, we set off for a trip somewhere, didn’t know where ourselves.

The weather was beautiful, very lovely for November.

I managed to take FOUR pictures. Usually, I make a few hundreds on a day like this (yeah, hundreds, I am a maniac).

The reason of my modest camera use today was very prosaic – I had let my camera ON for the whole night before. Accidents happen (and in my world tragically often).

Nevertheless, I finally managed to find out how to make darkened edges on a picture.

I am so glad…

And now I am going to show you something secret, so don’t tell anyone…

This is the original picture (or the SOOC – Straight out of Camera picture):

Don’t be looking at this for too long please, it might be detrimental to your eyesight!

Dear GIMP, thank you, you’ve saved my life again!

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