For March 10

Why does it seem that the gap between baking sessions is collapsing into no-time?  Am I falling into a black hole and not noticing?  Or if I was falling into a black hole, would time elongate, rather than collapse?  Maybe I'm falling out of one, not into one?  Or is it simply that, having added gym time 6-7 days a week to my schedule (on top of everything else), the rhythm of my life has increased - I've moved from a trot into something more like that rapidly thumping music that comes out of the spinning class.  I dunno.

Anyway, this week, two more Alice Medrich cookies.  I know, how boring, you say - unless you have tasted.

Coconut Sticks
Chocolate Espresso Cookies

both from Alice Medrich, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies

Alice Medrich's new book begins with various recipes for "sticks", which are basically a dough that is formed into a rectangle, chilled then sliced into thin "sticks."  This week, I am making the coconut sticks, which rely on a good amount of shredded unsweetened coconut as the main flavor element.  According to Alice, this particular recipe is, in her opinion, one of the real treasures of this whole cookbook.  Andy is not a huge fan of the "sticks" - he seems to think if you are going to make something with this technique, you should just go ahead and make biscotti.  I am a big fan of biscotti, but I am also enjoying these cookies quite a bit on their own - they are not very visually attractive, but they have a nice flavor.  But in making that comment last night, he did remind me that I haven't made any biscotti, one of my favorite things, in quite a while now, so I think that we will try to make some biscotti next week.

For the past few weeks, I have been trying to do one recipe that is a fairly subtle cookie, emphasizing limited ingredients and pure flavors, and then one that is just a flavor explosion.  This week continues that trend, which is to say that the chocolate espresso cookie is largely everything the coconut stick is not.  There is no delicacy going on here - it is just a chocolate-coffee bomb!  Alice says in her comments that this cookie was inspired by Maida Heatter, the doyenne of American baking a generation ago.  This cookie is not particularly sweet - it uses a large amount of unsweetened chocolate and not a huge amount of sugar, almost no flour (less than 1/2 cup), and then a very bittersweet (70%) chocolate for the chunks in it.  It is a very dark, gooey, rich mess of a cookie.  It also calls for adding some freshly and finely ground coffee.  What is interesting is that I only used 2 1/4 teaspoons of coffee (Peets Major Dickason's Blend, in case you were wondering) in a recipe that made 65 cookies, but the coffee flavor is really big even though such a small amount is used.  As I said, a chocolate coffee bomb!