Monday, November 15, 2004

Mondays with Maida – Santa Fe Chocolate Wafers


Page 20 in the old book / page 38 in the new book

Continuing on in the “Drop Cookies” section of the book, this week brings me to Santa Fe Chocolate Wafers. I should forewarn you that the book starts with about a dozen different chocolate drop cookies, so we’re going to be doing chocolate for the next couple of months! The Santa Fe Chocolate wafers are very thin, brittle chocolate cookies. The recipes in the old and new books are basically the same. The only minor difference is that the new book calls for semi-sweet chocolate cut into small pieces, while the old book calls for semi-sweet chocolate morsels.



The dough is mixed in a sauce pan, does not require a mixer, and is quick and easy to put together. While it is still warm, the dough is thin and more like a batter. It gets a little stiffer as it cools. There are no unusual ingredients and the only thing I didn’t have on hand was a jumbo egg. An extra large egg could also have been used, but all I had were large.



The note that accompanies this recipe characterizes these cookies as fragile, but they seem quite sturdy considering how thin they are. If properly packaged, they might even be suitable for mailing. I brought some to a family gathering last night and my mom thought they might make good ice cream sandwiches. I’m afraid they might be too crisp for that, but she brought some home and planned to give it a try. They taste very good, but are quite plain and not very exciting. They would certainly make a nice accompaniment to ice cream, though, as I think they are better suited to the role of a sidekick rather than star of the show.

Next time – “Chocolate Street” Cookies.

Nutrition Facts

5 comments:

Cerebrum said...

I don't mind it being chocolate for a while! I could NEVER tire of chocolate - I think?! By the way, I checked Jessica's Biscuit as you suggested - unfortunately they don't ship outside USA and Canada - BO-HOO! I'll live a little through you here...

Anonymous said...

Ahh, you're going through the book in order, of course. (I was wondering why the big chocolate start.) Those look good, but seem quite similar to the cookie from last week. I'll be excited to hear your absolute favorites at the end of this experiment!

Alice

Reid said...

Hi Cathy,

Before you said ice cream sandwiches, that's exactly what I was thinking. When I was much younger (back in the '70s) there was a chocolate cookie that we would eat with vanilla ice cream. It looked a lot like this! In any case, chocolate cookies are probably some of my favorites...I'm a sucker for 'em, especially if they're not too sweet and have just the tiniest hint of chocolate-y flavor.

Stephanie said...

My copy of the (old) book arrived just yesterday; I haven't had a chance to do anything with it (Alex is sick for the first time in 20 months, so I'm doting), but I'm definitely hoping to find some new cookies to add to my Christmas array.
Thanks for the tip!

Cathy said...

Zarah Maria - I'm so sorry Jessica's Biscuit didn't work out for you. If you see a cookie that you simply must have the recipe for, let me know and I'll email it.

Alice - Yes, doing them in order is kind of fun, although it does have it's bad points: 1) all these chocolate cookies bunched up together, and 2) all the more difficult cookies bunched up together! The flavor of these is quite different from the cookies I made last week - I much prefer the ones from last week and I think it might have a lot to do with the dark brown sugar! Some of the upcoming chocolate cookies also use dark brown sugar, so that will be interesting to compare.

Reid - I'll let you know how my mom's experiment with the ice cream sandwiches turns out. Actually, I suspect the cookies for next week might be better suited for that purpose (maybe I could do an experiment of my own!). Glad you're up for lots of chocolate cookies - not sure how many will fit the "not too sweet" criteria though!

Stephanie - I'm so glad you got the book - I hope you enjoy it. Sorry to hear your baby is sick. Hope he's feeling better very soon!