Saturday, January 8, 2011

Chocolate Paradise Cookie recipe, Chocolate cookies to die for, farmers almanac 2011 recipe

IF you love cookies! IF you love Brownies!  This is THE  chocolate cookie recipe!
This came from the 2011 Farmers Almanac. To make these Chocolate Paradise Cookies you will need......

3/4 cup butter
9 oz unsweetened bakers chocolate
3 cups white granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 1/2  tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups  all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Parchment paper

Then you will need to do this:
1. Beat together eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy
2. Melt  chocolate and butter together gently.  (recipe says use a double boiler, but I don't have one so I used the microwave)  Don't put directly on stove top because it will scorch.
3. Add melted chocolate and butter to  eggs and sugar, beat well.
4. Add walnuts to  chocolate mixture gently
5. In a separate bowl.... put flour, salt and baking powder, mix well
6. Add flour mixture to chocolate mixture  1/2 cup at a time
7. Let stand for 4 to 24 hours in refrigerator.  (I did both 4 hours and 24 hours, results were the same)
8. Roll into balls (I found 1 inch balls to be ideal)
9.Roll balls of cookie dough in powdered sugar, place on parchment paper on cookie sheet
10. This is really important........ Bake in oven on exactly 325 degrees for exactly 13 minutes.
They will be soft centered and puffy when you pull them out. Even if you think they are not done..... they are.

These are so good that when  we got down to the last 5 or 6 cookies ...Jimmy started getting twitchy and was afraid of running out  and asked for more to be made.  Jimmy is my coal mine canary and can be trusted to give instinctual responses to  stimuli.  His response to these cookies was fall over dead happy! And we all know by now..... that if they weren't perfect .....Jimmy would be the first one to complain.
In response to a reader comment I have tried to add photos. I'm not a good photographer but here they are anyway.  Trust me... The cookies are waaaaaaay better than the photos!




Friday, January 7, 2011

Wandering off, tasmanian devil, unfinished projects, chocolate cookies, bird and fish die offs, mad cat, dead hipster, Picasso's, Seattle Art Museum

Dear Blog, its been a week since my last entry.  So, lets see if we can catch up.  The freezing cold weather, which has since gone away, seems to freeze up my creativity as  well.  I have  four projects in mid process in the studio.  I have plenty of time to do them...... I just..... haven't.  I mean, I wander out there, look at them, consider working on them.....  and then  go pet the cat instead.  No ennui or anything like that ....I just ....wander off.  The bedroom looks like the tasmanian devil blew through it.  I wander in there to make order of the dis-order and then .....wander off.  I did manage to make some really scrumptious chocolate cookies from a recipe in this years  farmers almanac.  If I can keep myself from wandering away from the computer I will pass on the recipe tomorrow.
I saw a PBS special  this week that said if you feed your neighborhood crows that they will leave you presents.  So, I've been feeding them.    tomorrow I am going to give them leftover cornbread with a picture of the large format color scanner I want.
The cat is mad at me.  I took a trip to Mud Bay in Greenwood and picked up some  glucosamine to add to her food. She hates it!  But I'm tired of her kitty-bitching because her hips hurt.  And there is no way I'm going to hold her down and stuff a pill down her throat everyday.  Currently.... she is refusing to eat.  Oh well..... Maybe she will drop some of the fat off her butt. The vet told us 2 years ago to put her on a diet. We did and she gained even more weight. I'm pretty sure some little old lady in the neighborhood is feeding her.
I'm crocheting a blanket for a friend who is due to drop  a baby any day now. I hope I get it done before the kid gets here.
Bird and fish die offs.  Hmmmmm. Ordinarily I would be all over this.  One of my favorite web sites thinks its an orbital microwave laser targeting  specific frequencies.  They think its a brand new thing.  I'm going to send them a link to my crop circle blog.
Jimmy took me to see the Picasso's last night (first Thursday art walk, open til midnight) at SAM. It was sold out and there was a line   a  block long.  We renewed our membership and will try again on Monday .  We did have a very nice, romantic dinner at Luigi,s new place.
 I almost hit  a guy in a cross walk on the way there.  He was wearing  the obligatory Seattle  hipster ALL black.   I was the only car coming for three blocks and he chose to step out in front of me and then got  pissed because I didn't slam on the brakes.  Word to the pissed hipster..... If you don't want to die.... Don't wear black and jump in front of cars on a rainy Seattle night....crosswalk or no....  Of course it is possible he was suicidal and was pissed because I missed.   Oh well.... He's alive and my insurance premiums are unaffected.
I this may be the end of my ramblings for today.....I am getting the urge to wander again.

Readers