Friday, December 17, 2010

Chunky Twix Cookies


Much has been written on expat blogs about the absence of chocolate chips (as in the Nestlé Toll House variety) and the clampdown that has on making everyone’s favorite chocolate chip cookies. (Although Rachel has recently spotted a variety of said chips in a store in Rio.)

Even though I have a secret stash bag of chocolate chips tucked in the back of my pantry waiting for our New Year’s Eve party (thanks again Carlos) I came across this recipe for chunky, chewy Twix cookies a few days ago while TasteSpotting and HAD to cook up a batch.


I won’t repeat the recipe here, it is still up on the Sprinkled with Flour blog. But I do have a few picks to get your mouth watering.

The only straying I did from the recipe was due to the mid-90 degree weather here (and I’m sure well over 100 in my kitchen with the oven on). After I chopped up the Twix bars I put the chunks into a bowl and popped them into the refrigerator to stay firm (not melted) until I needed to stir them into the cookie dough. Otherwise I feared they would melt into mush and I would lose the chunk factor. It was a good call.


Also, I chose to put the final dough into the refrigerator for a few hours before baking to, again, not start out with a melted mess as they went into the oven.


The next time I make these cookies I will chop the Twix into LARGER pieces. Bigger chunks would be nice.

As suggested by the recipe, be careful not to over bake – they taste great right out of the oven, but then they turn all crispy from the baked sugar caramelizing. I know because I made this mistake with one tray. They are still delicious, but the wrong texture.


Note: the dark color seen in the first photo is a function of the dark brown sugar. I have not found ‘light’ brown sugar anywhere.

Super yummy!

3 comments:

American Heart Brazilian Soul said...

Holy Mother of Jesus, this is just what we needed now that we are bracing for a 4 day nasty heavy snow storm event ;)
Thanks for sharing!

Ray

Stephanie said...

Jim, I found a small 500 gram bag of "lighter" brown sugar at Sendas, it's called Agreco, I found it in the natural/diet section as it is organic. I too made cookies this week, inspired by Rachel's post! I followed the nestle toll house recipe and used 2 chopped up Nestle semi-amargo bars...they turned out really good, I was shocked. My next endeavor...making Christmas sugar cookies with my son. We did this last year and I have to say, working with the dough when it's so hot and humid out is a terror! Last year I popped the dough back into the freezer every few mintutes, it truly was like working with glue and trying to use cookie cutters...hahaha, you can only laugh. But MUST do it!

Jim said...

G&R-- go for it - they are delish!

Stephanie - I was never a believer in the marble roling pin and work board when I saw them in Williams & Sonoma in San Francisco. NOW I get it! Put them in the fridge overnight and half our melted dough problems would be solved!

Have fun making the cookies.