Tuesday, May 20, 2008

This Has NEVER Happened Before (Chocolate Shortbread)


I am out of bittersweet chocolate!
I am out of semisweet chocolate
I am out of milk chocolate
I am out of unsweetened chocolate in usable form (I need to break up a ten-pound block)

I will have to replenish my stores, since as Sweetnicks will tell you, chocolate is one of nature's most powerful antioxidants.

I do have cocoa, which I used to make a batch of Maida Heatter's chocolate shortbread. This is also the dough I use to make chocolate homentashn (hamentashen), for which you will want to double the recipe.

Chocolate Shortbread (Adapted from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts)
2 cups (8 ounces) flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
8 ounces (1 cup, 2 sticks) cold sweet butter, cut into chunks
1 or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Heat the oven to 300f. Combine the first four ingredients in a processor and process to a fine meal. with the machine running, add the vanilla, and continue processing until the dough forms a ball. Roll the dough to about 1/2 inch thick (Heatter says no less than 1/2 inch, but I think you can make them a little thinner than that (for homentashn, you will roll them almost 1/4 inch thick))
Cut the cookies into circles, hearts, or wedges, and bake for about 25 minutes.

This recipe appeared in Yiddish here.
דער רעצעפּט גפֿינט זיך אױף ייִדיש דאָ

I should be ready
to have at that block of unsweetened chocolate as soon as these are done.

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7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

wowowowow! ikh hob dos geleyent, glaykh oysgedrukt, un ikh bin b'emes gelofn tsum kikh un zey gebakn! siz nor a sho shpeter, un ikh bin zeyer imponirt mit vi sheyn un geshmak di kikhelekh zaynen. (ikh hob gemakht kvadratn, zeyer modernish)

9:34 PM  
Blogger the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

vunderlekh!
yo zey zenen azoy geshmak un azoy gring--laykhter vi mit a gemish. ikh hob lib oykhet tsu makhn kvadratn.
zoln zey dir zayn tsum gezunt.

10:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A block of chocolate and a hammer. Life doesn't get much better.

12:49 PM  
Blogger the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

rena,

you understand!

12:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, wow! Your chocolate shortbread looks terrific.

Paz

8:04 PM  
Blogger sher said...

They look marvelous to me! But,...I'm really worried about you not keeping sufficient quantities of chocolate on hand!!!!! :)

3:52 AM  
Anonymous Stephanie said...

You posted this recipe to our mutual friend Faith Jones's Facebook ages ago. I'd been meaning to make it ever since, and finally got around to it tonight. It's delicious! Thank you!

11:45 PM  

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