Some of you may remember the first time I posted this recipe .... well fresh
out of the lab version 2.0 is REALLY good, so I thought I'd share. It's
especially good with a cup of coffee.

Enjoy Jim
----

Chocolate Mocha Pecan Cookie


Ingredients:





2 tablespoons vanilla

1 large egg

3 tablespoons cocoa









4 rounded teaspoons instant coffee crystals (freeze dried)

2 teaspoons water








for 45 seconds to soften, then add the following:







3 tablespoons of cocoa

2 tablespoons vanilla

1 large egg



In a separate cup dissolve the 4 rounded teaspoons of instant coffee in 2
teaspoons of water. Pour it into the bowl with the above ingredients. Mix


pecans and mix them in well. If your hand isn't tired you didn't mix it
enough. Now preheat oven to 350.




2 teaspoons each). Roll them into a ball with your hands. You should get two
dozen good sized cookies. It's okay to make the a bit small. It's easier to
add more to the smaller ones than to take away from the bigger ones.




for about 5 or 6 minutes before you transfer them to a cooling rack.



About the measures:



teaspoon = the spoon you stir your coffee with

tablespoon = a soup spoon

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Jim Holsenback wrote:

> About the measures:
> 
> 
> 
> teaspoon = the spoon you stir your coffee with
> 
> tablespoon = a soup spoon

This is very important.

My mum bought one of those automatic bread maker things. Basically it's 
a metal box, you put some flour, sugar, salt and of course yeast into 
it, press a button on the front, and a metal paddle mixes the stuff 
around, leaves it for a while, mixes it some more, and then a heater 
element turns on and bakes the dough.

Except that when my mum tried to work it herself, rather than baking a 
delicious load of freash bread, it baked something resembling cement. I 
was consulted to analyse the fault. So I chiselled some of the 
brick-hard stuff out and tasted it. It tasted like pure salt.

Apparently my mother put 0.5 tablespoons of salt in rather than 0.5 
teaspoons. Hence the no rising and the burned wheat result. Gah! >_<

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:49da1dc9$1@news.povray.org...
> Jim Holsenback wrote:
>
> > About the measures:
> > teaspoon = the spoon you stir your coffee with
> >
> > tablespoon = a soup spoon

I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....

> This is very important.
> Apparently my mother put 0.5 tablespoons of salt in rather than 0.5
> teaspoons. Hence the no rising and the burned wheat result. Gah! >_<

never did much bread making or things like that. I DO know that baking soda,
baking powder and salt measurements are a bit more critical for baking bread
.... not enough yeast you get hard flat bread .... too much baking soda or
baking powder gives that saltly taste. I don't generally use salt but if she
used 1/2 table instead of 1/2 teaspoon that's about 4 times too much. so no
wonder it didn't turn out.

the cookie recipe is very easy and yes Andrew even you can make it ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Jim Holsenback wrote:

> I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....

Heh. Ever tried to weigh out 0.5 mg of a crystaline substance? It's not 
easy. ;-)

>> This is very important.
>> Apparently my mother put 0.5 tablespoons of salt in rather than 0.5
>> teaspoons. Hence the no rising and the burned wheat result. Gah! >_<
> 
> never did much bread making or things like that. I DO know that baking soda,
> baking powder and salt measurements are a bit more critical for baking bread
> .... not enough yeast you get hard flat bread .... too much baking soda or
> baking powder gives that saltly taste. I don't generally use salt but if she
> used 1/2 table instead of 1/2 teaspoon that's about 4 times too much. so no
> wonder it didn't turn out.
> 
> the cookie recipe is very easy and yes Andrew even you can make it ;-)

Hey, *I* know the difference between the two. ;-) Didn't take me long to 
find out the problem... Those poor yeast cells. They must have been 
crushed by the extreme osmotic pressure. Why, they probably autolysed 
themselves!

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:33:05 -0400, Jim Holsenback wrote:

> I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....

That tends to work for cooking, but not baking.  Baking depends on 
specific proportions of things being in the dough or it won't produce the 
proper chemical reactions.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
news:49da3398$1@news.povray.org...
> On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:33:05 -0400, Jim Holsenback wrote:
>
> > I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....
>
> That tends to work for cooking, but not baking.  Baking depends on
> specific proportions of things being in the dough or it won't produce the
> proper chemical reactions.

haha .... you are absolutely correct ..... tried making some sour dough
bread once. It was a miserable failure.

I guess that I should add, through trial and error I'm able to get
consistently good cookie dough. It's more like a ratio of dry to wet
ingredients. The dough should almost appear dry but forms a ball when you
roll it in your hand.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:17:16 -0400, Jim Holsenback wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:49da3398$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:33:05 -0400, Jim Holsenback wrote:
>>
>> > I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....
>>
>> That tends to work for cooking, but not baking.  Baking depends on
>> specific proportions of things being in the dough or it won't produce
>> the proper chemical reactions.
> 
> haha .... you are absolutely correct ..... tried making some sour dough
> bread once. It was a miserable failure.

One of these days I want to try bread.  Or pizza dough.  I've got the 
recipes, but in Salt Lake City the altitude and humidity mean that the 
recipes need some adjusting.

> I guess that I should add, through trial and error I'm able to get
> consistently good cookie dough. It's more like a ratio of dry to wet
> ingredients. The dough should almost appear dry but forms a ball when
> you roll it in your hand.

Yeah, pasta dough is somewhat similar - if it's too wet, it sticks to the 
roller. :-)

Jim

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:49da21a9@news.povray.org...
> Jim Holsenback wrote:

> > I tend to use pinch of this pinch of that method .....
>
> Heh. Ever tried to weigh out 0.5 mg of a crystaline substance? It's not
> easy. ;-)

Why 0.5mg? I'm pretty sure if a recipe calls for 0.5mg of salt, anything
between 0mg and 3mg will work just fine, depending on your taste. Just add
roughly the same amount of salt you'd add to similar volumeof soup, salad...
etc. We are not trying to land on the moon here. Reminds me of the oft
stated "objection" to switching to metric units: "What, I'm going to have to
ask for 0.4539 kg of tomatoes from now on?"

Post a reply to this message

>> Heh. Ever tried to weigh out 0.5 mg of a crystaline substance? It's not
>> easy. ;-)
> 
> Why 0.5mg? I'm pretty sure if a recipe calls for 0.5mg of salt, anything
> between 0mg and 3mg will work just fine, depending on your taste.

Erm, no. I was talking about watching one of the lab technitions 
weighing out a chemical reagent. (Do you have any idea how tiny 0.5mg is??)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Heh. Ever tried to weigh out 0.5 mg of a crystaline substance? It's not
>>> easy. ;-)
>>
>> Why 0.5mg? I'm pretty sure if a recipe calls for 0.5mg of salt, anything
>> between 0mg and 3mg will work just fine, depending on your taste.
> 
> Erm, no. I was talking about watching one of the lab technitions 
> weighing out a chemical reagent. (Do you have any idea how tiny 0.5mg is??)

Ha, you try weigh out several *micro*grams and then tell me the mg is 
difficult ;-)

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