17 Oct Chocolate Crackle Cookies

When I got married 4 years ago, my mother-in-law gave me a very special gift. A collection of family recipes, including many of my hubby’s favourite dinners and treats. Lucky for me, it also includes one of my favourite recipes, and you’re looking at it! The first time I sank my teeth into one of these chocolate crackle cookies, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  They are deeply chocolatey and chewy, but with a crispy shell. And to top it all off, they look absolutely stunning, and make for a beautiful gift.

This recipe has been slightly adapted from the original. I increased the cocoa a bit to make an even darker cookie in contrast to the white coating (and to satisfy my chocoholic tendencies of course). I did a little research on how to get the best “crackle” appearance and discovered that the trick is to roll the dough first in granulated sugar, and then icing sugar.
I must admit that the process of rolling the dough first into little balls, and then into the two sugars before baking is rather time consuming. And this can’t be done in advance either, the rolled cookie dough must be baked immediately after rolling to get the best crackle. So set aside a good couple of hours to make a batch of these. The only way I could convince you that it’s worth all the effort is by giving you a cookie to taste. But since I can’t do that, you’ll just have to trust me on this!

Ingredients:

100g salted butter, melted and cooled (7 tbsp)
2 large eggs
220g soft brown sugar (1 cup)
10ml vanilla essence (2 tsp)
7,5ml baking powder (1½ tsp)
50g cocoa (100ml)
150g flour (270ml)
70g ground almonds (140ml)
130g chocolate chips (¾ cup)

About ½ cup of granulated sugar and 2 cups icing sugar, for rolling

Method:

• Place melted butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a bowl and whisk for 1 minute.
• Sift cocoa, flour and baking powder onto butter mixture, and mix together.
• Stir in the almonds and chocolate chips.
• Divide mixture into 4 flat discs, cover each with clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 170°C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
• Working with 1 disc of dough at a time and keeping the rest in the fridge while you work, take teaspoonfuls of dough and roll into balls.
• Roll lightly in the granulated sugar, then roll in the icing sugar and cover completely.
• Place on the baking tray 5cm apart and bake for 12-14 minutes (12 minutes for a softer cookie, 14 minutes for a crispier cookie).
• Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before carefully removing and placing into an airtight container.