Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Victorian Flavour

These biscuits won't win any prizes for their beauty, that is for sure.

However, one bite reveals their inner beauty - a wonderful combination of dark chocolate, lemon zest and spice, all wrapped up in a crumbly and delicious, chocolate chip studded cookie.

I was out walking the dog (of course!) when I had the idea for using that fabulous flavour combination which I wrote about here to spice up my next batch of cookies, for the people who are working down at Cowslip Cottage.

This quantity makes an enormous batch, so you may want to halve the quantities, although they should store pretty well, given the chance.

Rich, Spicy, Chocolate Chip Cookies        Oven Temp 350 degrees

400g butter
50g good quality dark chocolate, melted
250g icing sugar
450g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g good quality cocoa powder
600g chocolate chips
freshly grated zest of a lemon
1 rounded tsp cinnamon

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in the melted chocolate, sift in flour, salt, cocoa powder and cinnamon and then stir in the lemon zest and chocolate chips.  Treat the dough just as you would do for shortbread, work until it all comes together in a nice lump.

Take a dessertspoonful of dough, roll into a ball, place on a baking sheet, flatten, mark with a fork and then pop them into the oven for approximately 15 minutes.

Cool on a rack.

I hope you enjoy the flavour combination as much as my family do.   The cinnamon is not overpowering and the lemon zest simply becomes 'citrus' which works so wonderfully well with the rich, dark chocolate.

They are good.

Lemons and Spice and All Things Nice

Normally at this time of year I would be thinking of light and fresh tastes to go with the lighter days.   Just lately, however, it has been cold and wet, which has made me want to return to warmer foods and flavours.

A recipe which seemed to fit the bill was the one for this Lemon and Ginger Cake.    The recipe calls for lemons, brandy, lots of ground ginger and quite a heap of Cayenne pepper.   Just reading the recipe warmed me and also made my taste buds tingle in anticipation.

(I forgot to add 2 eggs to this photogaph)

The recipe reads thus:

Grate the rind of 2 or 3 lemons, add the juice to a glass of brandy.   Mix the lemon peel into a pound of flour, a teaspoon of carbonate of soda, 1/2 oz of ground ginger and 1/4 oz Cayenne Pepper (if approved).  Make a hole in the middle and pour in 3/4 lb black treacle and 1/2 lb melted butter, the lemon juice and brandy and mix.   The cake may be much improved with the addition of two eggs.  So I added them.

No baking instructions at all - which used to worry me, now I simply use my common sense.

I baked it in a moderate oven until it was done!  Just for fun I bake it in a Bundt tin as I thought I could have some fun decorating it.

This particular book has countless recipes for ginger cake, honey ginger cake, ginger nuts, gingerbread, hunting nuts, etc.  Ginger was definitely a favourite spice.   The addition of cayenne pepper was unusual enough to get my attention and soon had me thinking about spice routes and sailing ships.

Some people like spice shops, I always avoid them.   I like the smell of individual spices, but I find the combination of myriad spice smells really offends my nose.  Weird, but true.

No such problem with just the two spices.

The cake has a deliciously warm background note, provided by the Cayenne pepper, with a good strong ginger flavour which is enhanced by the brandy and ginger.   I was delighted with the result.   My only problem was that the cake was slightly dry - not a real problem because I had some ginger syrup left over from a previous bake.

I mixed it with a another splash of brandy and spooned it all over the cake.

Topped with tiny bits of lemon, candied zest and slivers of candied ginger, we were ready to tuck in.

It was really good, but yet again I find myself wanting to tweak and slightly change the recipe.  

An experiment for later in the year, perhaps.