Bitter for the Sweet

Cooking, like life, is all about balance. For every sweet, heavenly moment we experience, there has to be an equal amount of bitter, sad times we wish we could forget. But without those bad times, there would be no good times either - how would we know what "good" was without a comparison? Like adding salt to desserts, those bitter pieces elevate each acme in our days and help us to truly appreciate those gifts.

I wanted to try and take that approach of balancing bitter and sweet aspects and apply it to the world of the baker's kitchen. Salted caramel, bacon chocolate cupcakes, curried banana bread and fleur-de-sel chocolate chip cookies have already been done, so I wanted something different. I also wanted whatever I did to be a twist on tradition, an unexpected flip of a typical-looking creation. I stuck with the chocolate chip cookie idea, but took it to both sweet and bitter extremes. The standard batter became a white chocolate, super sweet concoction, and the regulation chips became small chunks of completely unsweetened baking chocolate. The sharp bitter notes perfectly balanced out the cloying nature of the white chocolate and turned the standard lunchbox treat into a more adult offering.

Bitter-Chipped White Chocolate Cookies

Makes 20

4 oz (2/3 cup) white chocolate, chopped

5 oz silken tofu
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tbsp corn syrup
2 oz (1/4 cup) shortening
5.5 oz (13 tbsp) superfine sugar
4.6 oz (1 1/3 cups) flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 oz unsweetened chocolate (yup, no sugar or milk at all), chopped into small pieces and frozen
1 oz mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. In the microwave or a double boiler, melt white chocolate until smooth. Set aside.
2. In a food processor, puree tofu, vanilla and corn syrup until smooth. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl cream shortening and sugar until fluffy.
4. Add tofu mixture, followed by white chocolate, beating well.
5. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt until well blended.
6. Fold in unsweetened chocolate and chocolate chips.
7. Wrap dough in cling film and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
8. Preheat oven to 325 °F.
9. Drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet (greasing doesn’t work well with these!), leaving at least 2” between them – they spread!.
10. Bake for 15-16 minutes. Cool completely on sheets.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 144.3
Total Fat: 6.6 g
Cholesterol: 2.2 mg
Sodium: 9.5 mg
Total Carbs: 20.3 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.8 g
Protein: 2.3 g