Lately, I've been stocking rye flour in my freezer, so I'm always keeping an eye out for an opportunity use it. I decided to try Samantha Seneviratne's recipe for "Double Chocolate Rye Blackout Cookies" in The Joys of Baking that is based on Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies.
It only takes a couple of minutes to make the cookie dough, but since these are slice and bake cookies, you need to chill the dough for a few hours before baking. To make the dough, you beat room temperature butter with dark brown sugar; add vanilla; incorporate the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, rye flour, cocoa powder, kosher salt, and baking soda); and mix in chopped chocolate (I used Scharffen Berger 62% petite squares). I formed the dough into a log and chilled it for 24 hours.
When I was ready to bake, all I had to do was slice the dough and place the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I got 22 cookies from a batch of dough. There was no hiding the fact that these were slice and bake cookies; the final cookies were relatively round, but retained a sharp demarcation between the top and sides where the dough had been sliced.
The texture of the cookie was less sturdy than I had expected; I might have underbaked them a bit. The cookies were definitely very chocolate, with a distinct hint of earthiness from the rye flour. I only recently started baking with rye, and I can't decide what I think about it yet. So far, I don't love it. My experience is that when I eat something baked with rye (like these cookies or these brownies), I detect it as something foreign that doesn't quite seem to belong. It's not unpleasant, but it's something that keeps nagging at me, as I chew and think to myself: what exactly is this that I'm eating?
These cookies were good and my tasters were fans, but to me the rye flavor just came off as slightly odd. But perhaps it's just an acquired taste that I will get used to with time. There's more rye flour in the freezer, so I'll find out soon enough.
Recipe: "Double Chocolate Rye Blackout Cookies" from The Joys of Baking by Samantha Seneviratne, recipe available here from Fine Cooking (there a few discrepancies between the recipe printed in the cookbook and the version in Fine Cooking; the former calls for 6.75 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate and instructs you to slice the cookies to a thickness of a scant half inch).
Previous Posts:
It only takes a couple of minutes to make the cookie dough, but since these are slice and bake cookies, you need to chill the dough for a few hours before baking. To make the dough, you beat room temperature butter with dark brown sugar; add vanilla; incorporate the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, rye flour, cocoa powder, kosher salt, and baking soda); and mix in chopped chocolate (I used Scharffen Berger 62% petite squares). I formed the dough into a log and chilled it for 24 hours.
The texture of the cookie was less sturdy than I had expected; I might have underbaked them a bit. The cookies were definitely very chocolate, with a distinct hint of earthiness from the rye flour. I only recently started baking with rye, and I can't decide what I think about it yet. So far, I don't love it. My experience is that when I eat something baked with rye (like these cookies or these brownies), I detect it as something foreign that doesn't quite seem to belong. It's not unpleasant, but it's something that keeps nagging at me, as I chew and think to myself: what exactly is this that I'm eating?
These cookies were good and my tasters were fans, but to me the rye flavor just came off as slightly odd. But perhaps it's just an acquired taste that I will get used to with time. There's more rye flour in the freezer, so I'll find out soon enough.
Recipe: "Double Chocolate Rye Blackout Cookies" from The Joys of Baking by Samantha Seneviratne, recipe available here from Fine Cooking (there a few discrepancies between the recipe printed in the cookbook and the version in Fine Cooking; the former calls for 6.75 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate and instructs you to slice the cookies to a thickness of a scant half inch).
Previous Posts:
- "A Poppy Seed Surprise: Mokonuts' Rye-Cranberry-Chocolate Chunk Cookies," December 7, 2019.
- "Whole Grain Chocolate: Violet Bakery Rye Cookies," December 4, 2019.
- "Can Chocolate + Salt Change the World?: World Peace Cookies," April 2, 2011.
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