Chocolate Banana Cookies

Over the past two and a half years of parenting, there is one thing I have learnt, when travelling with a toddler, carry lots of food and lots of distractions ( read books, toys, coloring books and more toys.) While we are extra cautious about not forgetting the latter, sometimes we buy but forget to pack the perishables at the end. During a recent trip, that is what happened with a bunch of bananas. They simply got forgotten. So we returned home to a bunch of overripe bananas, seeking immediate attention. With Google at service, I soon found a million ways to use those and that is how these Chocolate Banana Cookies came to being.

Chocolate Banana Bars

Ever since those addictive Chocolate Walnut Bars got over, I had been looking for an excuse to bake a fresh batch of chocolate bars. It was just happenstance that there were two terribly over-ripe bananas lying on the counter-top on the day I bumped into Mario Batali's Chocolate Banana Bars. 

Chocolate Walnut "Jammy" Bars # Baking Partner's Challenge

This month Suja Manoj of  Kitchen corner try it challenged the Baking Partners with two simple seasonal treats... Chocolate Walnut Bars from Faye Levy's Chocolate Sensations and Lemon Bars  from The Secrets of Baking, Sherry Yard and The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle. Both bars looked tempting... but in a house of chocolate lovers, baking two non-chocolatey treats in a row would be sacrilegious (remember these Blueberry Coconut Friands), so I decided to bake the Chocolate Walnut Bars or  Chocolate Walnut "Jammy" Bars today. 

Chocolate Swirl Babka Muffin Buns # Baking Partner's Challenge

Babka, as most of you know, is a traditional Easter coffee bread from Europe. Apparently, babka is also the word for grandmother in Polish...  which is why a traditional babka bread was usually baked in a fluted round mold with a center tube and was said to resemble a women's full skirt from centuries past. The babkas as we know them today are elaborately flavored and heavily downsized... They are strueseled, swirled in chocolate and cinnamon and baked in ordinary loaf pans.. This version, nevertheless delicious, is believed to have descended from the Eastern European Jewish tradition.

Passover Brownies

Come April and my search for chocolate-y recipes begin.  When two family birthdays are aligned a week apart, this tends to happen. No ?  My mother and my husband.... both big time foodies.. in particular chocolate lovers, celebrate their birthdays in April... so come April my search for everything chocolate-y peaks  and sometimes leads me to boxes of chocolates and sometimes to cookbooks full of chocolate-y treats.... like The Ultimate Brownie Book ..

I got the brownie book from library the other day and the Passover Brownies were the first ones that I tried from it. The recipe is flourless  and delivered the intense chocolate-y treat that it promised.. But I must warn you right away that these brownies are not fugdy. They are somewhat gooey... and if that is not your thing... then these might disappoint you a bit. At least my husband did not seem euphoric about them.. even though he found them difficult to resist...

Chocolate Red Wine Mousse Cake

Husband and I have never been much into Valentine's day or for that matter any other Hallmark holidays. We however like chocolate cakes and for that reason alone I decided to make a big deal of  Valentine's day this year and celebrate it with this heavenly Chocolate Red Wine Mousse Cake...

The recipe is an adaptation of Michel Rostang's Double-Chocolate Mousse Cake from Dorie Greenspan's book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. I mostly followed her recipe, just made a tiny adjustment... replaced the brewed coffee with an equal measure of red wine... and created "one of the most elegant desserts ever"... so said the husband. We relished and enjoyed the dessert over the next 3 days, each time feeling decadent and wonderful....   

This is a flourless cake and is baked in two sessions. You first make the batter, bake part of it for the crust, chill the crust, then pour the remaining batter over the baked crust and bake the whole cake again. And then you chill it all over before serving. Yes. The process involved it is somewhat lengthy and tedious. However once you have baked, chilled and tasted the goey chocolately deliciousness, and seen the delight on your partners face,  you will forget about all the tiny details and will want to make the cake again for your special someone...  

Chocochip Cherry 'n Coke Muffins

Does it ever happen to you that you see a recipe, pin it and then cannot get it out of your head until you have tried it. It happens to me all the time... specially when I see something as awesome as a hand-written muffin recipe from a different era .. Something with ICE_CREAM and a promise of goodness in it. Something like these muffins from Four Mars.. One Venus that scream and beg to be baked right away... So I tweaked Jen's grandmother's Quick Blueberry muffin recipe a bit to make these Chocochip Cherry n' Coke muffins for breakfast on Sunday...

I had read about coke doing wonders to the texture of cakes before and on Sunday experienced it first hand. Even with their share of whole wheat flour, these muffins turned out so soft and fluffy. They were wonderful. Little boy enjoyed them too and declared that he likes cherry muffins.

The texture became a little dense the next day... but even then they tasted good. In fact I thought like most whole wheat cakes, they tasted better the following day. I had glazed half of the batch with a coke-cocoa glaze and my husband liked the glazed ones, little boy and  and I however preferred ours unglazed ones. We were happy with the chocolate-cherry combo and did not care much for the added sugar.....

Chocolate Financer

Its 5th Feb... World Nutella Day.. and I had a real goey-Nutella-y recipe in mind. So dreamily I went to the kitchen yesterday... thinking of all the goey deliciousness that was waiting for and Oh My... what do I see.. that jar of Nutella has been almost spooned clean.  I was almost in tears... It might have taken me a few minutes to get over that initial frustration ... and then I thought of making these Financier. Not Nutella Financier exactly but DELICIOUS none the less.

This recipe is from Around the French Table. One of Paris's most admired chocolatiers, Jean Paul Hévin gave this recipe to Dorie Greenspan. I did not change a thing about it. However a teaspoon of orange zest might have been a good idea so I added that in the recipe. Orange zest or otherwise these Chocolate Financiers are what perfection tastes to chocolate lovers. So bake some right away and indulge.... 

Tasty Tuesday #47 ~ The Chocolate Edition

Hi  everyone !! 

 Each week, our team of 10 amazing bloggers hosts this fabulous party! We're so glad that you've stopped by to party with us!

We blog: Anyonita Nibbles | Craft Dictator | Detours in Life | Lori's Culinary Creations | Red Cottage Chronicles |Three in Three | Mini Van Dreams| A Peek Into My Paradise | I'm Not a Trophy Wife | Ma Niche

Without you, we wouldn't have a party at all. So we think you're pretty special and deserve to benefit from linking up with us each week. Here's how:

The Best Biscuit Pudding Ever !

My sister-in-laws vacation is coming to an end. She will be leaving for India next week. But she possibly couldn't leave before treating us to her Biscuit pudding.

Like my husband and brother-in-law, she too completed her education in a boarding school and it was there that she learnt this recipe. While the recipe is constant in spirit, over the years the boarders at her hostel have adapted the original one and made their own versions. I have tasted a few others over the last 8 years of our marriage and I must say that each one was delightful.

Double Chocolate Cranberry Hazelnut Cookies

'Tis officially the cookie season and I have been baking lots of them. Few old favorites and some new ones. The old favorites are mostly Martha Stewart recipes.. Nothing beats the deliciousness of her chewy chocochips cookies... Nothing other than these Double Chocolate Cranberry Hazelnut Cookies...

In view of my husband's growing cholesterol and his doctor's advice I tweaked Martha's recipe to use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour. Also I added some hazelnuts to the cookie dough.. Yes. like all nuts, the fat content in hazelnuts is high, however they are good unsaturated fats that keep your heart healthy and mentally alert. Consumption of the latter was also recommended by the doctor. (In case you are interested you can read more about the nutritional facts of hazelnuts here.)

I must mention that the whole wheat flour and the hazelnuts did not meddle with the awesomeness of these cookies... In spite of  their presence these cookies turned out to be as decadent as ever...

One minute Nutella Cake & Weekly Menu Plan

I have tried making cakes in the microwave before. They are never the same as proper oven baked ones. They are not fluffy and airy... somewhere along the line they stop being cake-y and become more 'halwa-y'. So I usually prefer the 20 minutes baking time over instant microwave-ing... unless there is a terrible time crisis or an exceptional  recipe like this one.... With only 5 plus 1 ingredients in the batter, it gives you a perfectly crumbly chocolate cake. The kind that'll make you happy in a minute...... 

Add another tablespoon of Nutella to the batter and you'll have a delicious fudgy Nuttela brownie in a cup. That one is rich and gorgeous and though we both love it, today I went for the chocolate cake. Light, fluffy and delightful !  

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (Nigella Lawson)

Yesterday evening I might have spent a good half an hour debating between Nigella's Everyday Brownie and Chocolate Olive Oil Cake... It finally boiled down to a battle between butter and olive oil.. and since health ranks above all in every homemakers' world, olive oil won... well in this case extra virgin olive oil won, because that is what i had in hand. The outcome was a sheer delight. though there wasn't any occasion to celebrate, with a cake like that in hand, yesterday felt special. husband was grinning-happy, baby asked for more... and i was glad that i chose to bake the chocolate olive oil cake..

just wanted to note a few things before i go onto the recipe... i mostly followed Nigella's recipe except that i used EVO instead of regular olive oil and granulated sugar instead of superfine sugar. also, because i did not have enough almonds, i used plain flour and sprinkled some roasted almonds on top for flavor... and as you can imagine it gave a nice crunch to the cake without making it very heavy. 

another thing, if you can, control your urges of digging into the cake right away. for whatever reason... this cake gets better every hour.  the soda smell which was obvious in the first hour magically vanished by the time we put our baby to sleep and cut ourselves nice big slices of the cake ... and the cake tasted awesome with ice-cream and cherries...

Chocolate Olive Oil CakeRecipe Source : Nigella Lawson Express

ingredients ⅔ cup regular olive oil (I used extra virgin olive oil) 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder ½ cup boiling water 2 teaspoons vanilla extract  3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour or 1 ½ cups almond meal  ½ teaspoon baking soda 1 pinch of salt 1 cup superfine sugar (I used granulated sugar) 3 large eggs chopped roasted almonds for garnish (optional) -   the method Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch spring-form tin with a little oil and line the base with baking parchment or line a 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper. (I used my cake pan.) Measure out the unsweetened cocoa into a bowl and whisk in the boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolate-y, runny paste. stir in the vanilla extract and set the mixture aside to cool a little. In another bowl, sift in the flour along with baking soda and a pinch of salt. Beat the sugar and olive oil (preferably with a hand-mixer) till the mixture looks smooth and creamy. then beating continuously add the eggs one by one. continue beating until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream, about 5 minutes. then turning the speed down, add the cocoa mixture. once that is well incorporated, slowly add the flour mixture and beat lightly till a smooth uniform batter is formed. now pour the batter into the prepared tin, sprinkle the chopped almonds on top, in case you are using them and bake the cake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, until the sides are set and the center, on top, looks slightly damp. (my cake tester came out clean at 42 minutes. however Nigella says that the tester should mostly be clean but can have a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.) Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin. then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin.(since i had lined the cake pan with parchment paper I did not have to use metal spatula, it came off the pan easily.) Leave the cake to cool completely or eat while still warm with some ice cream, as a pudding. however as i noted above the cake gets better every hour so try and hold yourself back and you'll be fairly rewarded ;-)

Happy Baking and have a nice weekend !

I am linking this post to the event Cook like a Star, organised by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Anuja from Simple Baking. 

You can read more about the event here.

Also sharing this with the following food events...

Monday Food : Made with Love Mondays, Marvelous Mondays @ This Gal Cooks, Melt in your Mouth Mondays, Inspiration MOnday Party, Sharing Monday, Inspire Me Monday, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Maniac Monday Linky Party,Mix it up Monday, The Scoop

Tuesday Food:  Totally Tasty Tuesday @ Mandy's Recipe Box, Tasteful Tuesday Party @ Nap Time Creations,  Show Me What You Got @ Our Delightful Home,  Hand Made Tuesday @ Ladybug Blessings, Share it Link Party @ Winthrop Chronicles, Tasty Tuesday, Hearth and Soul blog Hop

Wednesday Food : What's Cooking Wednesday @ Buns in my Oven, Cast Party Wednesday @ Lady Behind the Curtain , Show and Share @ Semi Homemade Mom, Wonderful Food Wednesdays at @ Home Take 2

Thursday Food: Link it Up Thursday @ Seven Alive, Creative Thursday @ Michelle's Tasty Creations, Fantastic Thursday @ Three Little Chiefs, Thriving on Thursdays @ Domesblissity, Freedom Friday @ My Turn, Full Plate Thursday @ Miz Helen's Country Cottage  

Friday Food: Foodie Friday @ Home Maid Simple, Friday Favorite (DYI too) @ Simple Sweet Home, Foodie Friday @ Not Your Ordinary Recipes,  Foodie Friday @ Rattlebridge Farm , Weekend Wonders @ The Thriftiness Miss, Friday Food Frenzy @ Mostly Food and Crafts , Weekend Potluck @ Sunflower Supper Club,  The Weekend re-Treat @The Best Blog  Recipes, Friday Link Party @ The Pin Junkie, TGIF LinkParty@I WantCrazy

Chickpea almond chocochip cookie dough bites..

You might have noticed that for the past two weeks I have not been posting my cake for the week. well that is because I have not been baking any.  over the last month or so I have put on a LOT of weight and i figured its time to cut down on the sugary treats. however since I love something sweet with my cup of morning tea, last week i decided to bake these healthy chickpea and peanut butter cookie dough bites from Texanerian Baking that I had bookmarked. but since there wasn't enough peanut butter in stock I substituted it with blanched almonds. the result was pretty good. can't call these cookies addictive because these are quite filling and you really cannot have more than one at a go. in fact if you are not a big eater, a single cookie with a glass of cold milk is good enough to take care of your breakfast, which might be a good thing if you are dieting. 

now here's how i made these grain-free cookie dough bites...

Chickpea Almond Chocochip Cookie Dough Bites

ingredients

• 11/4 cup boiled chickpeas
• 1/2 cup blanched almonds
• 2 tsps vanilla essence
• 1 tsps baking powder
• 1/4 tsp pinch of salt
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1/2 cup chocochips

what i did

• first i preheated the oven to 350 degrees F. 
• i then coarsely ground the almonds the in the blender. then adding all the ingredients except the chocochips to the ground almonds i blended the mixture until all the ingredients were well-combined.
• then removing the mixture from the blender i added the chocochips to the dough and shaping them into little patties placed them on a baking tray and baked for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.
• when i took the cookies out of the oven the surface facing up looked cracked.  so i left the cookies  out for about 5 minutes and then flipped each cookie and baked for another 4 minutes. 

thats it ! a batch of 11 healthy breakfast cookie dough bites were ready to serve !

As this recipe includes chickpeas, I am linking it to the 60th edition of My Legume Love Affair, a food event that was created by Susan  of  The Well Seasoned Cook and is presently managed by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen. This month Nupur of One Hot Stove is hosting the event. 

  

also since these have been made from the scratch, I am sharing them at Made with Love Monday, a event hosted by Javelin Warriors of Javelin Warrior's Cooking w/Luv.

Get Your Chef On ~ Chocolate : Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf

Well it is time for yet another GYCO Challenge Reveal ! This month 

Jen of Four Mars and One Venus and

Julie of White Lights on Wednesday

challenged us to create a chocolaty delight. 

though there were numerous chocolate recipes to choose from, it took me a while to decide what i wanted to make for this round of the challenge... and it was Irvin Lin's brilliant photographs that made me finally decide on the 

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf.

it was a good decision because this loaf baked me happy.  it looked gorgeous and tasted divine. 

in fact we were so delighted by how the loaf turned out that following the same recipe i baked a second loaf the next day, this time a chocolate swirl brioche, and took it for my brother's family. needless to say they loved the took of the fancy loaf and were more than happy to dive into it right away. so a big thanks to Jen and Julie for this months challenge. I can now bake marbled and swirled Chocolate Brioche loaves at home ! 

now the recipe of the loaves 

as adapted from Eat the Love and The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf  (Recipe for a 2 pound loaf )

ingredients

for the brioche dough

• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 21/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 1/3 cup semisweet chocochips
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 11 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

1. i made the brioche dough in the bread machine. for that I all the ingredients expect the butter in the machine pan and  programmed it for the dough cycle. 
2. when the machine started on the second knead I added 2 tablespoons of the butter and restarted the dough cycle. as the butter started getting incorporated in the dough I handed another 2 tablespoons of butter and continued this way till all the butter was incorporated into dough. i then let the dough cycle complete. 
3. when the machine beeped at the end of the cycle i inverted the dough into a plastic container and divided the dough into 3 equal parts. next i put 1/3 of the dough back into the bread machine pan along with the ingredients for the chocolate layer. again i programmed the machine for the dough cycle and let it run till all the ingredients were well combined and a smooth chocolaty dough rode on the blade of the pan, about 10 minutes. 
4. i then stopped the machine and stretched the chocolate dough to a 11x6 inch rectangle over a plastic sheet. i then put half of the brioche dough on top of the spread out chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size. next inverting the two layers on another plastic sheet I put the remaining brioche dough on top of the chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size.
   
   then placing the sandwiched dough in a plastic container i covered it with a plastic cling wrap and transferred the container to the refrigerator. 
5. 7 hours later, i took out the sandwiched dough from the refrigerator, cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from it. then piling the rectangles together in a loaf pan, i covered the pan with a kitchen towel and let the dough double in size. this took about 2 1/2 hours. 
6. once the dough doubled i preheated the oven to 400 degrees F, then egg washed the loaf, sprinkled some sugar on top and in the preheated oven, baked the loaf for 20 minutes. then turning down the oven temperature to 350 degrees F I baked the loaf for another 10 minutes until surface looked golden brown.

i waited for 30 minutes before taking the loaf out of the pan and cut out the first slice after the loaf had cooled down completely. 

Swirled Chocolate Brioche Loaf (Recipe for a 11/2 pound loaf)

for the brioche dough

• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 5 tbsp semisweet chocochips
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour 
• 8 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

for the swirled brioche loaf i proceeded in the same way as for the marbled loaf except that in step 5, after taking out the dough from the refrigerator, i rolled it out with the rolling pin then folded it as shown in "1st fold"...

then rolled it out again and folded the dough as shown in "2nd fold."i then cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from the folded dough and proceeded as above.

the dough before and after the rise...

so those were my gorgeous Chocolate Brioche Loaves. Hope you had as much fun reading about it as i had baking and eating them. Wish me luck for the Challenge and do visit the other delicious entries for this GYCO Chocolate challenge at .....

Four Marrs and One Venus &  White Lights on Wednesday

Until next time...  take care..

These loaves are being Yeastspotted. 
Also sharing these at a couple of weekly food events.

Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes

yesterday.. with all that snow and breeze... all i yearned for all day was... something sweet... something spicy.. something gingery yet gorgeously chocolaty ... so at lunch time... i googled and rampaged the internet in search of that perfect recipe for me... while gingersnap cookies and dark chocolate tart with gingersnap crust were close contenders... by themselves,  they weren't enough. i wanted more. wanted them both all at once.. in a bite... so after returning home i set out to tweak the two and mix-and-match their recipes to create  my own chocolaty-gingery-deliciousness... Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes, that is Chocolate in Ginger Tartlets.   the name was an afterthought. after the first bite i was convinced that i had tasted something awesome.. something that demanded a better name than chocolate in ginger tartlets.. so i googled a little more and decided on naming my dessert after a close cousin of it... Tartelettes au Chocolat et Gingembre Confit...

okay.. so with all that exuberance you must have realized by now how happy this dessert made me....  Nishi LOVED it and so did my little one... since we could not resist the sight of chocolate, we had it for breakfast this morning and were absolutely delighted. ... the heat of the ginger balanced out the bitter sweetness of the coffee and chocolates so..oo  well. whats more... the chocolate filling in the tarts  is devoid of any cream or butter. pureed tofu does the work instead while assuring your taste buds all along that they are having nothing but the best...  also, with that added touch Nuttela, I am certain that these tartlets will be a party-winner everytime.... irrespective of whether it is a party for kids or grownups... 

ingredients:

for the tart shells: (using the proportions below i made 15 gingersnap cookies and 6 tart shells)

3/8 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/4 cup unsulphured molasses

1/4 cup cup pureed tofu(i used 7oz lite firm tofu pureed with 1/4 cup applesauce)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 2/3 cups + 6 tablespoon all-purpose-flour

1/3 cup oats flour (i ground old fashioned oats)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 inch ginger freshly grated

7 cloves ground 

for the chocolate filling : (the proportions given here filled the 6 tart shells to the brim)

1/4 cup semi-sweet choco chips

1/2 cup pureed tofu(i used 7oz lite firm tofu pureed with 1/4 cup applesauce)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/8 cup espresso 

3 tablespoon Nutella (Chocolate Hazelnut Spread)

for garnish:

4 almonds grated

3 almonds chopped lengthwise in half

6 raisins chopped in halves.

what i did: 

For the ginger shells, I sifted all the dry ingredients together and kept the mixture aside. Next, I whisked both the sugars and molasses along with butter until the mixture looked smooth and uniform. to this, i then added the pureed tofu, vinegar and grated ginger and beat the mixture some more. finally i folded in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, 1/4 cup at a time. after a while when the mixture became dough-like and tough to whisk, i kneaded in the remaining dry ingredients into it. then i let the prepared dough rest for about 30 minutes on the kitchen counter.

In the meantime, I  preheated the oven to 350 degrees F; lined a two baking sheets with parchment paper and 6 of a 12 cup muffin tray with paper baking cups and prepared the chocolate filling.

For the chocolate filling, I put the pureed tofu, espresso and vanilla extract in a saucepan and simmered the mixture over low heat for about 3-4 minutes. next i added the semi-sweet chocochips in the mixture  and let it stand for a few minutes until chocolate chips got soft, then i whisked the mixture until it became smooth.  finally i added in the Nutella one tablespoon at a time and stirred some more till the mixture acquired the colour and consistency of chocolate ganache.  

Next, I rolled 15 walnut sized balls and 6 lemon sized balls of the dough. and while i set the walnut sized balls on the baking sheet and put them to bake for 22-25 minutes, i pressed the lemon sized balls against the  walls of the prepared baking cups all the time trying to make sure that the dough walls have an equal thickness on all sides. at this point i also sprinkled some grated almonds into each of the dough shells.

After the first set of ginger cookies were done, I put in the prepared muffin tray into the oven. 25 minutes later when I pulled out the muffin tray from the oven, the "shells" looked somewhat like this...

their centers had puffed up ... but since the gingery bakes were still soft ... so i pressed the center down with a small spoon like this....

and shaped the bakes into gingery tart shells... and this is how the shells looked after being pressed...

I then let the prepared shells rest for a while, about one hour, before pouring the chocolate filling into them. Finally i garnished them with almonds and raisins. and because Valentine's dry is around the corner and I heart my husband and he hearts chocolates, i did one last thing...before putting these chocolate filled ginger shells to refrigerate overnight... I doodled a little chocolate heart on the almond in his tartlet... 

kiddish yet cute... isn't  it :)  

notes and after thoughts

as i mentioned, i adapted the cookie dough recipe from Joy of Baking. There, she tells you to bake the cookies until they are dry and firm on top. That made me bake them for 25 minutes. Though with the added moisture from the chocolate filling, 25 minutes of baking seemed just right for the tart shells, the cookies felt hard. maybe 20-22 minutes of baking time and few hours of cooling would be perfect for the desired snappiness of the cookies. 

since i had not baked eggless gingersnaps before, i set out with a little more ingredients than would be required just for the ginger tart shells. with the extra dough i baked 2 trays of cookies before starting on the  Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes. baking the cookies first, helped me decide on how i needed to treat the cookie dough in order to create the ginger shells. 

in the recipe for the chocolate filling i added only 3 tablespoons of Nuttla, because while mixing, that felt very sweet. however it did not seem too sweet after cooling. though the sweetness was perfect for us, if you like your desserts really sweet you can probably add few more spoons of Nuttela in the filling and enjoy the deliciousness....

Happy baking !! and fill me with your notes and comments on this if you stop by... I'll love to hear...

Sending this to 

Thursday's Treasures @ Chocolate, Chocolate & more, Wednesday Extravaganza @ Hunger Little Girl

Vardhini's event Bake Fest # 16-Cooks Joy hosted by Surabhi of  My Cook Book 

Valentine's Day recipe contest- Priya's Versatile Recipes

Bon Vivant #12 - Quixotic Fixes at Summee's Culinary Bites

Healthy Food for Healthy Kids - Event at Nithu's Kitchen

Vardhini's event  Sweet Luv 2013: Event Announcement (CJ #4) at Cooks Joy

Cook like a Celebrity Chef at Food Corner

p.s : Read more:http://www.joyofbaking.com/Gingersnaps.html#ixzz2K5xh4Trw