Madhouse recipe : Double choc cookie cups

Believe it or not, these rather delicious looking chocolatey treats started off as a total failure, but I managed to reincarnate them into something completely different to how they started out ! If Mary Berry had laid eyes on them, she wouldn't have said they had a soggy bottom, she'd have said they didn't have a bottom at all - but when the bottom falls out of your world cakes, this is the ultimate rescue recipe ! 

This all started as a totally simple, no-brainer recipe for Chocolate Frosted Christmas Cookies over on the Real Housemoms blog. Simple sugar cookies with extra cocoa powder added to the mix, topped with an equally simple icing - except nothing went to plan ! I often find I have problems with American recipes but I think it's the result of different flour, sugar, butter, etc here in Europe.

My first batch of cookies came out huge, not at all like the cute little round ones in the original recipe, and they had a weird spongy, bubbly texture when they came out of the oven (because of the bicarb and baking powder, I would guess), so I thought it would be a nice idea to use a silicon muffin tray instead. This worked perfectly and they puffed up into the most beautifully risen muffins I've ever baked ... then I opened the oven door and they totally caved in like souffles !

Where did they go ?! 

I decided they might work as little cookie tart cases instead but when I tried to take them out of the muffin tray, the crispy tops came off, leaving the lower third in the bottom of the tray.

There was just about enough base to rescue them though and luckily I had a cunning plan - filling the bases with the crumbs then pouring over the chocolate topping which should (hopefully) set and hold everything together. Luckily that worked and they turned out very tasty, albeit a bit too sweet for my tastes. I was tempted to reduce the quantity of sugar in the icing but thought I'd better not fiddle with it, as everything was going pear-shaped as it was. I'd definitely halve the quantity of sugar next time though.

 Double choc cookie cups

ingredients :

For the cookies:

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons milk

For the filling :

6 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons milk

1& 3/4 cup powdered sugar

coconut chips to garnish

Cream together the butter and sugar, along with the vanilla extract. This, I think, was my first downfall. After repainting our bedroom yesterday, I had arm ache and didn't want to put in the effort required to cream together butter and sugar so I used margarine instead. It was much easier but also less firm than with butter.

Mix in the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and cocoa powder. This could have been my second bad move - using Bisquick "baking mix" in place of flour. I figured it's an American product, it's an American recipe ... but maybe not !

Add the milk and give it all a good beating to combine all the ingredients. Mine was quite loose.

Space out dollops on a baking tray covered in baking parchment and bake at 180° for 13 minutes.

Mine spread out a lot and came out very soft and bubbly. Allow to cool on the sheet then put in the fridge to firm up for 10 minutes before carefully peeling off the baking parchment. They are soft, chewy, gooey cookies and would be nice with or without icing.

This is where my second idea came into play - putting the same sized dollops into a muffin tray to keep them in a nice, round, regular, smaller shape. Well, that was the plan, but as you saw above, it didn't quite work out as expected !

Scoop out the crumbs left in the bottom of the muffin tray and put them in the cookie cases.

Put the butter, cocoa powder and milk in a saucepan and heat gently to melt.

I did use proper butter this time but it still didn't look right - very oily and gritty.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the sugar (I'd reduce the quantity by half next time - it's very sweet otherwise)

Quickly spread the chocolate icing over the top of the cookie crumbs and sprinkle over some coconut chips (or sprinkles or whatever you fancy).

Given everything that went wrong, they came out remarkably well ! Next time, I'll just stick to cookies though, even if they do come out too big and misshapen !

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up the ends of two tubs of drinking chocolate (a plain one and an chocolate orange one).