It’s been a busy month.
I just moved house over here in Melbourne, where I’m now
sharing a house with J, R, EJ and TY. It’s no mean feat to pack up all my
belongings and move into a new area, and having to find my feet and start
afresh again.
Not everything went smooth-sailing, and I got off to an
especially rocky start. I touched down to Melbourne on Sunday evening right
before my school started instead of the morning of, because Scoot had a flight
delay (and my feedback email went unanswered one month and
counting…). I reached our new property to find that my key was defective. (Of course, no one was home either.) My bedroom played host to an adventurous Giant Spider™, who
survived multiple bashings with my dustbin throughout the night (curse the soft luxurious
carpeting!) My metal bed frame bent during the transport, and after three hours
of wrangling with EJ, we finally admitted that not all the screws are meant to
go in anymore. Luckily, medical textbooks are nice and thick and heavy, and
some of them now moonlight as a support for that vulnerable corner of my bed
frame.
But but but, after a couple of weeks, I’m finally getting into the groove of things. After the bitterness, as the Chinese saying goes, comes the sweetness, and I’m very much enjoying every bit of my our new home. We colour-schemed the kitchen: only shades of white and grey allowed, thankyouverymuch, and the top of our dining table, yet to be chosen, absolutely must go with the wooden floor. We picked up a great deal at IKEA, and lugged home a wooden-topped beauty.
 |
| Shades of white only on the marble counter: design on point |
There are many things to be thankful for, and great
dependable friends are near the top of my list. And great, dependable
bargain-hunter friends? Hang on to them with all your life.
One of the things I’m loving about this new property is the
heavy-duty oven, which is easily three times the size of my portable oven. The vastness makes
baking regular-sized cakes wasteful, so I’m not throwing away my trusty personal oven
just yet, but its splendid size means I can now bake whole batches of cookies
all in one go!
This was the first recipe I tried, and the results were
everything I wanted: soft chewy chocolate cookies, and picturesque to boot! I
brought a batch to my hospital for the lovely staff there, and received
compliments on four separate occasions. (And I got asked for the recipe!) This one is a keeper for sure,
especially now that I have a giant bag of Costco almond meal (800g for a wee $16), for which this
recipe barely made a dent in. I’m really excited about all
the excess almond meal I have lying around, something that used to be so scarce before. Maybe I can whip up a rift of the
Baci di Dama cookies, using almond meal instead of hazelnut? (Update!: Baci di Dama is great with almond meal as well.)
Our house project is far from complete. I’m still unpacking
my belongings, still setting up deals to sell unwanted notes and textbooks. But on the success side of the story, I just set up a table for brewing hot beverages on the second storey, as well as a
communal bookshelf right alongside it, turning it into a
cozy corner where we can sit on the part of the carpet where the sun comes in
through the window and sip tea together and read fancy books. But so far, we've been so busy with school that none of us ever had any leisure time to do some reading. There’s
a thousand more small things that needs to be done. But for now? I’m content to rest around the home for a bit,
drink a bit of coffee, and maybe eat another cookie.
225g (8 oz) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
45g (3 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 1/2 Tbls. liquor or strong coffee (I used Kahlua)
150g (1 cup) almond meal
70g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
70g (1/3 cup) sugar, plus more for coating
powdered sugar for coating
Steps
1) In a saucepan set over the smallest possible fire, melt the butter. When the butter is almost melted, add chocolate and liquor. Stir until melted and smooth. Once the chocolate melts, remove pan from the heat.
2) In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix in the almond meal.
3) Whisk the eggs and the sugar together on high speed until the mixture thickens and forms a well-defined ribbon. Mix in the chocolate mixture and then the almond mixture. Chill dough overnight or until firm, at least 2 hours.
4) When ready to bake, fill a bowl with granulated sugar, and another bowl with powdered sugar. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment and preheat oven to 165C (325F).
5) Using a tablespoon, spoon out the dough and shape into one inch balls. Lightly roll each ball in sugar and then the powdered sugar. You don’t want it to be too sweet! Space each ball about an inch apart on the baking sheet.
6) Bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating the pans midway, until the edges are firmer but the center are still soft. It is easy to burn chocolate cookies, so err on the side of underbake. They're meant to be soft and chewy!
Notes:
David notes that these cookies are best on the day they're made.
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