Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Now these are magic!!

This recipe came from the magnificent Bakerella website. (looking back now, mine are some what larger than hers... and her photos may be a smidgen better. I suppose.) Her recipe came from a Martha Stewart webby. I have made some adjustments...

Since this was an American website, and I'm far too lazy to convert the cup measurements into useful weights, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to use yet another Christmas present from another brother... This time the cup cake measuring cups.

 Pink and Shiny!

Right... On we go:

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

• 8 oz Dark Chocolate
• 1 1/4 cups Self-Raising flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 oz softened butter
• 1 1/3 cups light-brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup milk
•  icing sugar
• granulated sugar

(as you can see, I've changed some of the amounts from the original American recipe. What's a stick of butter when it's at home? Well, it's about 4 oz, as it turns out.  And I've removed the amounts of icing and granulated sugar. I just poured the sugars into two saucers, and put more there as required.)

Now... Martha starts her recipe by suggesting you pre-heat the oven to 180oC.
Woah there, Skippy. There's two hours of refrigerating to be done before you bake them!

I would recommend using a stand mixer with a nice big bowl - I had to do mine by hand, as the mixer's still packed away somewhere... It just made it much more fiddly!

• Start by chopping up the chocolate, and melting it over a bowl of simmering water. Allow it to cool slightly.

• Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a large bowl
• In a mixer bowl beat together the butter and light-brown sugar until fluffy and light.
• Add the eggs and vanilla and continue to beat
• Pour in the melted chocolate - reducing the mixer speed to low
• Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk until combined (here's where the original recipe used 1/3 cup of milk, but I  found that made for a very wet, slightly unmanageable mix, so suggest reducing the initial amount of milk, and adding more if required)
• here's where I stopped reading the instructions....
• Chill the mix in the bowl (in the fridge... or in the freezer for speed

• And this is where you should heat the oven!
• Use the patented scooping with a pair of tea-spoons method to scoop out small lumps of dough 
• Drop each into the saucer of granulated sugar and roll them until completely coated

• Drop the sugared balls into the saucer of icing sugar, and roll them around again.

• Place the balls onto lined baking trays, about two inches apart, and place them into the oven.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes

When they're cooked they'll have flattened and have a magically crackled sugar coating!

• Leave the biscuits on the tray for 5 minutes, to allow them to firm up.

• When firm, remove the biscuits, and cool on a wire rack