Mondays with Maida - Key West Chocolate Treasures

Page 24 in the old book / page 41 in the new book

No need to adjust your set. Yes, these cookies do look very much like last week’s cookies. In fact, if you compare the list of ingredients they are very similar. Both recipes have the same amounts of flour, butter, dark brown sugar, egg and vanilla. However, this week’s cookies - Key West Chocolate Treasures – have more chocolate, sour cream rather than milk, coffee and coconut. The icing is slightly different as well, using sour cream rather than heavy cream. They are smaller than last week’s cookies and, to my taste, have a little more character.



These cookies are mixed in a mixer and are a little more bother than last week’s cookies – but not much. The only difficulty I had was in melting the chocolate for both the dough and the icing. I’ve heard of chocolate “seizing”, but I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced it before. I think I have now. The chocolate for the dough is melted together with ½ cup of coffee. The chocolate was nearly melted and all was well, when suddenly it started separating and looking a little clumpy. I wasn’t too concerned since this was going into the dough, and indeed it turned out fine. Once mixed into the butter, sugar and eggs, the chocolate was perfectly smooth. I was slightly more concerned about the chocolate for the icing, since the problem appeared to have been caused by a mistake I had made. I melted the chocolate and butter together, but should have included the sour cream as well. When I realized my mistake, I rather hastily threw in the sour cream. I put it back on the heat and stirred, but before long it was looking pretty awful. Some sort of liquid was separating out from the chocolate and the chocolate was very clumpy. I tried using a whisk and kept it on the heat, but nothing was helping. Miraculously, as soon as I stirred in some of the sugar, the chocolate became silken smooth.



These cookies are quite good. They are not as cakey as the Big Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cookies from last week, and are slightly chewy from the added coconut. The icing is delicious – I had a little leftover and kept going back and licking a little more off the spatula. Of the four cookies I’ve made so far, this is #2. My favorite so far is the first recipe I made – Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies.

Next time – Chocolate Applesaucers.

Nutrition Facts