Galletas de Chocolate 1987 (Chocolate Cookies)

Kimble, Socorro Munoz, and Irma Serrano Noriega. Mexican Desserts: The Sweet Side of Mexican Cooking! Golden West Publishers, 1987. [TX773. K53. 1987]

Galletas de Chocolate

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Butter (or margarine), Room Temperature
• 1 ¼ Cup Powdered Sugar, Sifted
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1 ¼ Cups Flour, Sifted
• ¼ tsp. Salt
• ¾ Cup Chopped Pecans
• 3 (3 oz) Circular tablets Mexican Chocolate (or 9 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate plus 6 Tbsp. Sugar)
• ¾ Cup finely-chopped Pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 250° F

Cream butter, add powdered sugar and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in flour, salt, and ¾ cup chopped pecans. Melt chocolate in double broiler and add to batter. Shape into one-inch balls and roll in remaining ¾ cup finely-chopped nuts. Place on ungreased baking sheet, one inch apart. Cookies will spread slightly during baking. Bake at 250° F for 40 mins. Allow to cool before removing from baking sheet.

Makes 72 cookies.

In the Kitchen:

I picked this recipe for three reasons; I am a horrible cook and figured cookies are easy, chocolate is my weakness and my dad’s favorite so I know I wouldn’t be eating these alone, and lastly, I could easily find the inexpensive ingredients in my local grocery store. There were a few issues I had while following this recipe. For example, I had no idea what sifting meant and when I first tried to blend the flour and butter, it went flying everywhere! I had my father step in and help me because I’m inexperienced in the kitchen.

The recipe was in English and easy to follow. Since I was unable to find any Mexican Chocolate, I had to make some adjustments. Thus, instead the recipe suggested adding 6 tablespoons of sugar to semi-sweet chocolate. Flavored with cinnamon, almonds, and vanilla, Mexican Chocolate already has a very sweet taste. American semi-sweet chocolate is unsweetened chocolate or baking chocolate with added sugar to give a semi-sweet taste.

There is clearly a notable difference between the two as can be seen in the recipe’s advice to add sugar in order to make semi-sweet chocolate equivalent to Mexican Chocolate. Standard American chocolate that has been unaltered primarily consists of simply cocoa beans and cocoa butter. Unsweetened chocolate must have the added sugar otherwise the taste would be quite bitter. In order to be classified as “semi-sweet,” the chocolate must have 15 to 35 percent chocolate liquor, which consists of the cocoa beans along with the cocoa butter. Mexican Chocolate also has a grainy texture, which may be because of the added almonds. It appears that with Mexican Chocolate the cookies would have been much sweeter. Even with the added sugar to the semi-sweet chocolate, the cookies did not taste as they would had I used regular milk chocolate. Also, I melted the chocolate in the microwave, because I do not own a double broiler, and since I had a lot of powdered sugar left over I sprinkled it on top of the cookies for an added sweetness.

I did not cut down on the ingredient measurements so I had about two pans of cookies-which ended up spreading into each other when baked. As I said before, there was powdered sugar left over and once I figured out how to sift, I did so over the cookies. However, when I did this the cookies were still too hot so it didn’t have the look I was going for, but the taste was still there! The cookie itself was not amazing, but not too shabby for a first time homemade cookie.

Unfortunately, the ingredients called for a lot of butter and chocolate which makes this cookie very high in fat. If someone was to make this same while being fat cautious, I’d recommend maybe a darker chocolate or possibly a substitute for the butter. If I were to do this recipe again, I would like to find real Mexican chocolate to see if the taste is any different. Overall this experience was a learning one and still retains a sense of Mexican flavor with the pecans and chocolate.