Cookbook Friday: Chocolate Balls

Well, that’ll teach me to post on three hours of sleep.  Nice.  That’s okay, it’s only the Internet.  It’s not forever.  Sooner or later, al-Qaeda will succeed in its plot to blow it up into much, much smaller nets.  Either that or the Iranians will slowly start unraveling its frayed edges with their many forks.

But, you came here for a belated cookie recipe, and a cookie recipe you shall receive. 

As you know, I had some problems with the recipe last weekend.  Fifty percent of those problems have been resolved and that’s good enough for me.  The chocolatiness has been dramatically improved.  However, the cookies are still not ball-shaped in the strict sense of the word. 

I tried refrigerating the dough.  That didn’t work.  I formed them into balls and then froze them.  That helped a little.  Not a lot.  They still ended up looking more like chocolate snickerdoodles, which isn’t the worst thing in the world.  As Inne of Vanille & Chocolat suggested, if you want something perfectly spherical, just sandwich two of them together with frosting. 

That’s damned right.

Chocolate Balls

Who really cares what they look like, anyway.  They’re good.

1½ stick oleo (or butter)
¾ cups brown sugar
2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
¼ cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2½ cups flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Icing
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ cup cocoa
5 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream oleo (or butter) with brown sugar.  Add melted chocolate and mix well.  In a small bowl, mix together milk, egg, and vanilla.  Add to the sugar mixture and blend until it really just looks like you’re not making any progress at all.  It’ll look gross; it’s just temporary.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Stir until incorporated.  Form into small balls (smaller than a golf ball, bigger than a marble).  Bake 10-13 minutes, until tops start to crack.  Cool.

For icing, mix together confectioner’s sugar and cocoa.  Add milk as needed to get an icing that coats well without being gloppy.  You may need to thin it with more milk as you go along.  Dip tops of cookies into icing and let sit until firm.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut – Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Raisin Cheesecake Cookies

     (Previous Recipe: Anginettes)

Comments

[Sarah]

About the chocolate: are we talking unsweetened or something else? There's not a ton of sugar, which makes me suspicious that maybe semisweet is the stuff, but maybe the icing makes up for it?

[Tammy]

Sarah: Thanks for catching that. Yes, semi-sweet is right. I've added it in above.

[Kathy]

I made these cookies last night and thought they turned out nicely, even if they weren't perfectly round balls. They are so pretty! I like that the cookie itself isn't all that chocolatey--the icing makes up for it. I interpreted your recipe to mean two squares and I used a Hershey's Baking Bar (dark, slightly sweet). My frosting is still a bit sticky this morning though--and I don't frost cookies enough to know why or how to correct that next time.

[sunny12]

oooh, they look like moose poop! ha ha, that's a Canadian reference. For us urban Canadians who barely know what a moose looks like, moose poop are bags of chocolate candy that are sold in every souvenir shop across Canada.
Happy eating!

[Tammy]

Sunny12: Thanks for that wonderful image. As if the name "chocolate balls" weren't enough.

Kathy: So glad you liked them. As for the frosting, I've made it four times now and one of those times I had that stickiness problem and had no idea why. Maybe humidity? Maybe a bit too much milk. I'll see if I can figure it out during all this upcoming holiday baking.

[Wicked Good Dinner]

I had trouble with chocolate cookies the other day, too.

I'm blaming my cookie problems on global warming...it seems to be the escape-goat trend lately - LOL!

[Inne]

These look absolutely adorable Tammy! I keep on trying to pluck them out of the computer, but no luck. Oh, and I've now got the Chef from South Park's song stuck in my head...