Coffee-Butter Creme Chocolate Dipped Almond Cookies
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That is an insanely long title, but I wanted to make sure you understand why this is a recipe you need to try. Coffee Butter Creme. Chocolate. Almond. And 20 of them.
Granted, it is a very weird name for a pretty delightful cookie: goats feet. Presumably because the double cookie resembles the double hoof of a goat, and not because in the days of yore, real goats were used. No, this cookie is good for vegetarians.
It is not the easiest cookie to make, and it involves a lot of steps, but the result is good to look at and even better to eat. This recipe is from the book “Koekje”, from Kees Raat (modern cookies with a twist) and Cees Holtkamp (classic recipes for cookies, some of which are hundreds of years old). Holtkamp arguably makes the best shrimp croquettes. Nice tip: get them at Restaurant Dauphine in Amsterdam.
Goats Feet Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 Egg whites
- 160 grams Caster sugar
- 100 grams Ground almonds
- 20 grams Sifted cake flour
- 50 grams Shaved almonds
- 150 grams Dark chocolate (70+% Cocoa)
- 100 grams Confectioner’s sugar
- 100 grams Butter
- 3 tsp Instant Coffee
Instructions
Utensils
- Large bowls
- Hand mixer
- Silicon spatula
- Baking sheet, baking parchment
- 2 Piping bags, piping nozzle (12mm)
- Glass bowl, big enough to fit halfway in a pan
- Pan
- Cooking thermometer
- Cooling rack
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
- Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Slowly add the 60 grams of sugar. Continue beating until all the sugar is dissolved.
- Carefully mix the flour, ground almonds and the 100 grams of sugar in the egg white mass. Fold, rather than stir: keep in the air bubbles.
- Cover the baking sheet with the parchment paper. Prepare the piping bag with the piping nozzle. Fill the piping bag with the mixture and pipe rows of the mixture of about 2,5 inch or 6 centimeters long. Take your time: the neater you pipe the cookies, the cleaner the result will be. You will see every blob and hole once baked. Sprinkle a couple of shaved almonds over each cookie.
Baking
- Place the sheet in the oven and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes. Depending on the size of the cookies and the heat of your oven, it may take 1 or 2 minutes more. They are ready when you can sort of easily pull them off the sheet, and you can’t easily crush them when you prod them.
- Once the cookies are ready, slide them from your baking sheet on your cold kitchen counter top to stop the baking, and leave them on a cooling rack to cool off.
Construction
- Now, on to the butter creme. Put the butter, powdered sugar and coffee powder in the bowl and use your hand mixer to mix together. Start with the mixer on the slowest setting, to prevent dusting yourself and the entire kitchen. When the mixture is ready, prepare the piping bag. Important: the cookies need to be cool before you pipe on the butter creme to prevent it from melting.
- Pipe on a narrow line of butter creme on the cookie’s flat side, the side that was on the baking sheet. Do not fill the cookie to the ends: it should not pour out when you press the cookies together. Place a second cookie on top, flat side on the butter creme, carefully press and set aside. Repeat for all the cookies.
- Look at the result, and be proud of the result so far.
- Fill a pan with hot water and place on your stove. Place a glass bowl on it, and make sure the bowl does not touch the water. Place 75% of the chocolate in the bowl and let is melt. Using the cooking thermometer, carefully monitor the temperature. When it hits 45°C/113°F, immediately take the bowl off the pan (make sure not to burn your hands) and stir in the remaining 25% of the chocolate chips. Keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted. Be careful not to allow any moisture to hit the chocolate: stay away from water.
- Pick up a cookie, and dip the one end in the molten chocolate. Turn, and repeat for the other end. Place on a piece of parchment paper to cool. Repeat for all the cookies.
- Put in the fridge to allow the chocolate to fully harden again.