Cookies for Nanette; Planning for Our Alice in Wonderland Tea Party!
This recipe has been specially developed, designed and made for Nanette aka Gourmet Worrier. I have only recently met Nanette via the internet, however it feels as if we have known each other for many years. I love the posts on the Gourmet Worrier, Nanette writes about real life and cooks with real food. So when Nanette asked me if I would develop a recipe for her blog Gourmet Worrier I was honoured and delighted.
I thought for a while what I should cook. As I’m a true girly girl and like real girly things I imagined that Nanette would indulge in girly things too. I was almost day dreaming and conjuring up an imaginary friend at a Alice in Wonderland Tea Party, this reminded me of the nursery rhyme “What are little girls made of?”……… “Sugar and spice and all things nice…”
I dreamt about spicy chocolaty biscuits with soft naughty centres. As this was an important gathering for me I wanted to make something special to mark the occasion . I was contemplating the running order of this perfect and joyful afternoon, it would start with a deliciously and very carefully brewed cup of English breakfast tea; lots of gossiping and then the pièce de résistance would be these wonderful cinnamon chocolate and meringue sandwich cookies.
That’s what I would plan for our “Alice in wonderland” tea party!
All the jokes and dreaming aside this recipe has a lot of interesting elements and lots of flavour but the unique and beautiful thing about it is that it’s completely new. There are flavours that I have never combined before such as raspberry, coffee, cinnamon and chocolate. It works! Outrageously fantastic!
The meringue centres are crispy and chewy at the same time laced with fragrant home made raspberry jam and this is all sandwiched together with soft crackly chocolate, coffee and cinnamon crinkle cookies. These cookies have a rather unusual ingredient, and that is yoghurt, I hope that you are now intrigued and interested? These little beauties are packed with flavour and is definitely a grown up’s tea party piece!
Nanette I thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing my creative juices to flow, this recipe is for you with lots of love from England!
Chocolate and Cinnamon Crackle Cookies
- 80g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 250g dark brown sugar
- 125g cocoa powder
- 10g instant coffee granules
- 5g bicarbonate of soda
- 5g ground cinnamon
- 2 large free range egg whites
- 300g plain flour
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 100g natural full fat yoghurt
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the cocoa powder, coffee, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon and mix well.
Add the egg whites and yoghurt and mix.
Mix in the flour to make a soft dough.
Divide the cookie dough in three; wrap each quarter in cling film forming a long sausage.
Refrigerate for 1 hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Cut the cookie sausages in slices and press the cookies out to 5cm diameter by ½ cm thick circles.
Place the cookies on the baking tray and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. I like them slightly soft, but you can bake them for a further couple of minutes if you prefer them to be crispy.
Once the cookies are cooked let them cool for one minute on the baking tray then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Meringue disks
- 200g large free range egg whites
- 400g caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 100°C and line two baking trays with parchment paper; I normally mark the paper with 5cm circles to indicate the size of the meringues.
Place the egg whites and sugar in a medium saucepan. Gently heat the egg whites over low heat,wear a disposable glove on one hand and use to stir the egg white and sugar, this will help to pasteurise the eggs and dissolve the sugar. Use your hand as a temperature control, the temperature should not exceed 37°C, this takes about 5 minutes. Do not boil the egg whites.
Transfer the egg mixture to a mixer with a balloon whisk and whip the meringue until stiff and glossy.
Transfer the meringue to a piping bag and pipe 5cm wide disks about ½ cm thick.
Place the meringues in the preheated oven and dry them for about 30 – 45 minutes.
Assembling the cookies
Use two cookies with one meringue disk.
Spread home made raspberry jam on one side of one cookie then place the meringue onto the jam, spread the other cookie with more jam and then sandwich it to the meringue cookie.
Complete all the cookie sandwiches and then lightly dust the sandwiches with ground cinnamon.
Makes about 30 cookie sandwiches
Food Fanatics Tip
Serve the cookies on the same day that you have assembled them, if you like to keep some for the following day then keep the components apart and assemble as required. This will prevent the meringue from going soggy.
If you do not bake all the cookie dough at once then place the left over cookie sausages in the freezer, defrost the dough completely and bake as per instructions above.
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Sounds like a fantastic recipe but i am wondering why you heat up the egg whites first? i usually just beat together the whites and sugar in my k aid, please explain.
cheers
Trish from the land down under
Dear Trish,
Please see one of my other recipes that explain this method a bit more in detail. https://www.britishlarder.co.uk/giant-cocoa-and-cinnamon-meringues/#axzz1Xk4DCSnp
The reason I heat the sugar and egg whites is to help the sugar dissolve quicker, the heat also improve the aeration and it gives my meringues a great gloss and a firmer “fluff”.
Happy Cooking
Maddy
Wow, what a great recipe! The combination of cinnamon, chocolate, and raspberry just sounds delicious
These look SO great!!! The tea party sounds fabulous, Im very excited about ALice in Wonderland!
This looks like a great recipe- and quite unusual too!
Wow, these look fabulous!! Can’t wait to try these little treats.
[...] of course, I found a recipe for just such a cookie! These Chocolate and Cinnamon Crackle Cookies are absolutely delish! Perfect for when holiday guests come to [...]
These look yummy and perfect. I want to drown in piles of them, with a cup of tea. Thanks for sharing!