TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIE

I don’t believe people will be disappointed if I add more chocolate to one of my favourite chocolate chip recipes, n’est ce pas?

In this amazingly yummy cookie are three different types of chocolate:  Callebaut milk, Callebaut dark and Callebaut white.

I’ll tell you right now that it is a winner.   In my opinion, you cannot go wrong if you add more chocolate.  The addition of the white chocolate gives it a somewhat nutty whisper.  But there are no nuts! My kids are allergic to nuts. 

I have some decent sources for my chocolate chunks.  I prefer them to chocolate chips because these morsels are substantial and their shapes are quite uniform. 


I buy my Callebaut chunks from the bulk bins at The Real Canadian Superstore.  They also sell the huge slabs of milk or dark chocolate as well as a multitude of chocolate wafers, traditional chip shapes in various sizes and other nifty confections to add to your cookie dough. 


Originally, I had added black sesame seeds to this cookie dough recipe in combination with white chocolate chunks.   Unfortunately, they didn’t look too appealing to me because the black sesame seeds looked too much like ants crawling all over the cookies.  However, that being said, my colleagues hoovered them up and raved about how delicious they were with the nuttiness of the black sesame seeds.   I wasn’t convinced they looked appetizing enough to post though…and so you don’t get to see them.  You see, currently I am having an all-out war in my garden with a bunch of ants.  They’re everywhere.  I can’t stand them.  My mother twirled around a stick in a little mound of dirt and exposed a whole nest of eggs to the surface.  The ant eggs looked like grains of brown rice.  All I can say is “uck”.  I can’t stand how they “groom” the aphids in my Asian pear tree.  I can’t stand how they’re all over my veggie patch and sometimes when I pick some peonies or other flowers from the garden to bring in, I notice much too late that they’re crawling around the inner petals.

I have won a few battles with the ants at the expense of my grass.  I poured boiling water on the ant nest:  die ants, die!   And so did a few patches of lovely grass.  I concocted a borax/peanut butter death meal as well as a borax/confectioners’ sugar and a borax/jam mixture so that I could get as many species of ants as possible.  I’ve got big ones, little ones, ants that like sweets and ants that like proteins.   But of course, I’m still seeing plenty of ants.  I have seen about a dozen little ant hills in the garden and that’s what I can see.  Who knows what they’re doing in the front yard and around the cracks in my steps leading to my house.  I can’t stand it!   There are mounds of sand around cracks and crevices everywhere!   I am persistent though and as soon as I start my summer break, I’ll be going out every day checking on my ant poisons to see if they are having any effect.  


So, though I digress, you now know why I cannot possibly post a recipe that has anything resembling ants in it.   Okay, so the cookies didn’t look like they had ants, but I’m in a state of mind where anything small and black is BAD!

On a lighter and less caustic though just as deadly topic, this Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe is based on the Jacques Torres recipe I’ve used before.  I replaced some of the sugar with agave syrup to ensure that they stayed moist and chewy. 


I like!

I like how there’s so much chocolate in the cookie that there’s barely enough dough holding the chocolate pieces together.  I like how the white chocolate plays against the milk and dark.  I like how a hot cookie with a cold glass of milk transports me to the age of 8, when I didn’t care how many calories were in a cookie and blissfully gorged myself with a plateful without remorse or promises to myself to run another hour on my treadmill. 
[hit the jump and scroll to the bottom of the post for the recipe.]

SHOPPING SPREE AT GOURMET WAREHOUSE

It isn’t often that I find myself at the Gourmet Warehouse on Hastings Street in the East side of Vancouver.  However, since we had to head over to the Mikado Martial Arts supplies store on Hastings for some hand wraps for Bebe, I thought we ought to stop on by while we’re in the area.  It’s been over a year since I’ve visited the store.

Btw, Bebe earned her green belt in Karate recently.  She was also named “Top Student of the Term” and that’s a pretty big achievement for a 6 year old.   

Anyway, time was short and I rushed around looking at all the goodies.  I didn’t even get to see 1/4 of the stuff because I stalled at the Soda Making machines and decided to finally purchase one.  I’ve been eyeing the Penguin for a while (since a year ago) but hesitated because I heard the CO2 cartridges are hard to come by.

I drink tons of soda water and this would be hopefully a good thing for the summer too!  I can make my own soda drinks without sugar and experiment with flavours too!  


I have yet to make soda from my deliciously clean, free tap water (I filter it usually).   I’ll be trying it later on in the evening.   Vancouver’s tap water is fantastic and I don’t buy bottled still water at all. 

Sometimes I drink mineral water because I love bubbles, but for regular drinking purposes the whole family drinks tap water.  It’s such a waste to buy bottled water in our neck of the woods.    Did you know that B.C. tap water is rated as the BEST in the World?  no foolin'...check it out here!  In fact, Vancouver tap water is safer and cheaper to drink than some bottled waters.  You can see an article about this from the news here.  Now, I can put bubbles in my tap water, I don’t think I’ll be buying any club soda, Perrier or San Pellegrino anymore!

The SodaStream kit comes with 2 glass bottles for storage and they are specially designed to fit this particular machine.  You have to buy their bottles.  You can’t use just any ol’ bottle.  The CO2 cartridges can be returned to the store and exchanged for new ones or refilled ones.   The starter kit comes with the Penguin, 2 bottles and one CO2 cannister.  The cannister I was told would last 60 litres.  That should keep me for a while until they get more stock on the cartridges.  They had 3 different starter kits with 3 different prices.  The cheapest model used plastic bottles and was lighter (and not as pretty), the medium priced model was a tad better looking and the Penguin was the higher end model.  They are all made by SodaStream.  The Penguin starter kit was $299.99.

The SodaStream is touted as being environmentally friendly since you don’t waste money and resources on bottles and cans.  You save money in the long run if you drink a lot of soda water and it’s healthier if you opt to make sugarless drinks with juices.  Soda Stream Penguin Water Carbonator


Hit the jump to see the rest of the contents of my shopping bag!

CARAMELLY SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

 

These cupcakes were for my English 12 class. 

No, I don’t bake regularly for my students, but generally I do so at least once for my Twelves before they leave our school.  

I have never made a buttercream from brown sugar before and it was quite fortuitous that I found a recipe for it at the last minute because I ran out of granulated sugar and had intended to top these chocolate cupcakes with a snowy white Swiss Meringue Buttercream.    Consider this a variation of the Best Chocolate Cupcake Ever…a Caramel version.

I love the smooth texture of the Swiss Meringue whipped silly until it’s silky smooth on the tongue.  This buttercream recipe is from my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook.  It was doubled to frost 24 large cupcakes.   I recommend my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe.  However, if you’re in a crunch, just use a chocolate cake mix.  

The buttercream has a caramel flavour and is quite lovely against the chocolate cupcake. Swiss Meringue buttercreams pipe beautifully and hold up well in warm weather.

The kids seemed to love it and I thought it a shame that many kids today have never  had a REAL fresh cupcake made from scratch—ever.    What kind of society are we creating when the youth have only experienced mass-produced dry crumbly cupcakes swirled with achingly sweet shortening-based frostings made from confectioners’ sugar and studded with multi-coloured crunchy sprinkles? 

The top view…achieved by swirling from the outside in…of a Wilton 1M icing tip. 

****WARNING:  the buttercream will curdle.  You will then swear a deadly streak and think of sending me a wicked comment for this post.  However, you shall persevere and then commence to take a deep breath.  Switch from the paddle attachment back to the whisk and whisk at med-high speed until it all comes together again.  It’ll deflate considerably from its glorious fluffy mass and become rich and buttery looking.   Then, change back to the paddle attachment to eliminate any air bubbles.  The buttercream should be smooth.

I’ll repost the recipe here for my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe (so far!) and the Caramelly Brown Sugar Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe is below it.  If you’re not up to making the cupcake part—as it requires you to make two separate batches, (according to the recipe, which doesn’t guarantee results if you simply double it) then one chocolate cake box mix will yield you a convenient 24 large cupcakes.  

I have had many comments on how successful this cupcake recipe is, so you ought to try it.   Tell me how you like this Caramel version over the original Vanilla Swiss Meringue version.  Hit the link below to see the recipe.