Flourless Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

Yes, you read correctly, chocolate cookies again :-) You can't have enough of chocolate cookie recipes in my opinion! These fabulous little chocolate bombs are flour- and butterless, but they involve lots of sugar and chocolate.

I found the recipe over at Divine Baking. I can assure you, that you don't need a Kitchen Aid for this recipe, but I'd still like to have one... :-)



Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate, cut into rough chunks
• 3 large eggwhites at room temperature
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 3/4 cup of dark cocoa powder (not the sweetened one here!)
• 1 tbs corn starch
• pinch of salt

How to make it:

• mix 3/4 of a cup icing sugar with the cocoa and the corn starch, set aside
• melt 1 cup of the dark chocolate in a bowl and let cool to hand warm afterwards
• beat the egg whites with the salt until soft peaks appear, then, spoon by spoon add 1 cup of icing sugar until you have a proper meringue texture
• now slowly beat in the dry ingredients
• once the dark chocolate is cooled, fold it carefully under the egg mixture, followed by the rest of the chopped chocolate
• this is where I had problems following the original recipe: it says, that the dough stiffens upon addition of the chocolate
• this didn't happen in my case, however, I put the bowl into the fridge for 10 mins and voila, here we are, a proper dough you can roll into balls
• that is exactly what you do, take a tbs of dough and roll it into a ball shape
• now roll it in the remaining icing sugar and cover it thickly 
• place on a baking tray lined with grease-proof paper and bake until the surface is cracked (12-15 mins) at 175 °C
• now make sure the cookies cool completely before transfering them, they will remain soft and are easy to break
• Mine didn't last very long (I took them to work), so I have no idea, how long you can store them.. But that might not be an issue for you as well!

Enjoy :-)

Chicken and Aubergine Curry

Curry Night :-)

One of my favourite curries is this one here. If you want, you can substitute the vegetables with others or change the chicken for lamb.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast, cut into small chunks
• 1 green pepper, cut into dice
• 1 medium size aubergine, also cut into dice
• 400 ml canned tomato or passata
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 walnut-size piece of ginger, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp paprika powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
• pepper, salt and chili to taste

And how to make it:

• heat some oil in a pan
• add garlic, ginger and onions, fry until softened, add the cumin 
• add the chicken and brown 
• add the other dry spices and the green pepper
• fry 5 mins, then add the tomato 
• add the aubergine and the bay leaf and cover
• cook for 25-30 mins
• when cooked, season with salt, pepper and chili to taste
• serve with rice and/or naan
• sprinkle with fresh coriander

That's it, quick and easy curry for saturday night!