After The Rain
After the rain
washes away the tears
and all the pain
only after the rain
you’ll live again
“After The Rain” ~ Nelson
As for me, it’s After Disasters. After disasters, I’ll live again.
Disaster #1:
This is what you’re gonna get if you tried a Chocolate Crinkles recipe, or Chocolate Crackle some other would say, which obviously had too much liquid in its composition of ingredients. And the baker, that means me, was too ignorant to notice such thing. Well, at least it had the cracks. Flat cracks. It tasted good, though.
Disaster #2:
This is what happened when you rolled an already perfect chocolate crinkles batter in… donut dusting. I mean, who was the idiot that got this idea of using donut dusting! Of course it would melt away the minute it got into the oven. It melts one second it got into our mouth, for God’s sake! It’s me. I’m the idiot.
Disaster #3:
The ultimate disaster in the history of chocolate crinkles baking of all time. Kids, this is what happened when you stubbornly kept using the previous batter, the one with too much liquid that produced ugly flat cookies in disaster number one, rolled the balls in —that’s right— donut dusting, put them on cookie sheet, then put the cookie sheet in refrigerator prior to baking, thinking that the cold temperature will hold their shape before the heat finally baked them done. Kids, you do not want to do that. Do not try this at home.However, the lava fertilizes the soil after volcano eruption. The earth is re-nourished and clean after a heavy rain. After disasters, come nothing but… a success!
Have I posted pictures enough?
Recipes I used, verdict, & some wisdom:
The successful one, was the one from Joy of Baking. The disaster-number-one, was from Taste of Home. Not to discredit Taste of Home, because it did taste better than the one from Joy of Baking.
While Joy of Baking’s was giving nice rounded dome cookie shape, it fell flat in taste. It was just straight chocolaty. Taste of Home’s jumped far from chocolate to coffee, to rich toffee —thanks to brown sugar. What’s flat about it was the shape. So, my suggestion is to combine both. After learning the hard way, let me share some wisdom:
- Use Joy of Baking’s recipe, or whatever recipe you like, but make sure you add 1 Tbsp of instant coffee granules to the butter, and substitute half of the sugar with brown sugar.
- I tend to reduce any sugar amount in western recipes, because our sugar is sweeter. Especially our palm sugar. Sweeter and wetter. So, if you’re in Indonesia trying western recipes, don’t go all out for sugar yet. Try reducing it about 20-30% from original recipe. Often times I cut it to half.
- Roll the dough balls in regular powdered sugar. Not donut dusting.
- Roll the dough balls in powdered sugar until they are heavily coated. Roll and roll them again if the chocolate still shows. You want them to look like Mochi bun. Pretty much like these:
Well, after disasters, you’ll live again.
After the rain
washes away the tears
and all the pain
only after the rain
you’ll live again
Comment by eliza — October 8, 2007 @ 1:17 am
selamat sukses! :~)
Comment by kate — October 8, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
these look really nice and cute.thanks for the recipe. will definately try them >))
Comment by Andrie Anne — October 9, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
Perlu dicubak nih..
Comment by small cookie — October 11, 2007 @ 8:43 am
yummmmmmmm….. really tempting to sneak one off.
Comment by ibunadaffa — November 3, 2007 @ 12:36 am
waa… i always love this cookies..
this cookies remind me of my love stories
i never thought will found the recipes with lots of tips..
thanks A LOT!!:)
Comment by ibunadaffa — November 7, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
i’ll tell those stories ( 2 is a lot right? :p)
— taste good no crackle
after my succesSful stories of chocolate crinkles.:)
~status: still trying
Comment by shella — February 23, 2008 @ 10:11 am
i’ve tried baking this recipe.. it always goes flat.. so what really is the secret for keeping it rounded?? thanks
Comment by Luluk — April 18, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
Daku dah coba resepnya sesuai verdict n wisdom dari mbak. Dan… SUKSES!! Rounded dome cookie shape with lovely crackle.. really nice..
I like the coffee taste but not all my family member liked it. Some of them say it’s strange. it’s like deceiving. Chocolate in colour but coffee in taste. NO matter what, Still I LOVE IT!!! Udah dapet pesenan cukup banyak (sekitar 85 topes @250gr). Cuman masih bigung gmn nyicil buatnya agar tetep cantik. Bisa ksh tau caranya? Leleh ngga ya gulanya kl disimpen lama? let’s say 1 week?
Thanks!!!
Comment by cindy — May 9, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
hi riana, looks cute, btw kalo sugar coats nya mau berwarna, gemana cara nya… icing sugar ditetesin pewarna - diaduk2 rata gitu bisakah?
thanks:)