Second Helpings #15 Turkish Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

with brown butter, cardamom, and caramelised white chocolate0

It’s been an exciting week here, with new projects started and charity bake sales held. A new notebook was started and a flood ideas for a fun project were scribbled down, to be ordered into something more solid at a later date. After being surprised with Covid a few weeks back I am finally starting feeling more like myself and am happy to be back in the swing of work, feeling excited to be in the kitchen after a few slow weeks. After avoiding the dreaded virus the past three years, it felt like time finally caught up with me and decided to teach me a lesson about being cocky, thinking I was never going to get it. It took me completely by surprise, the night before I felt completely fine and then the following morning I felt utterly awful. It may have knocked me sideways for a few days, but then it very slowly started to improve. Thankfully I tested negative after a week and it started to feel nothing more than an annoyance almost as quickly as it started. I am left, a few weeks after testing negative, with just a few lingering breathing issues. After taking it easy for a few weeks I was excited to finally get out and about and actually leave my house!

Melissa, Ixta, Ravneet and Melek

Feeling better mainly meant that I could take part in last weekends charity bake sale, raising funds from the Turkey and Syria Earthquake Appeal. I made a massive batch of cookies and I was thrilled to be a very small part of the amazing fundraising. Organised by Ixta Belfrage, Melek Erdal, Ravneet Gill and Melissa Thompson, and hosted at the wonderful Holloway Model Bakery, the bake sale (and the accompanying auction) raised a whopping £45,000. If you came and bought baked goods thank you so much.

Always amazed at the turnout for these charity bake sales

The cookies I made for the bake sale were inspired by Turkish coffee, the combination of cardamom and coffee being a particular favourite. The cookies were made with a blend of plain flour and rye flour giving the cookies a big leg up on flavour before any of the other elements were even added. The dough was made with browned butter that had been infused with ground coffee and cardamom and the finished dough was then packed full of dark and caramelised white chocolate. To say the cookie had a lot going on is an understatement. If you like the sound of the cookie, the recipe is available below for Second Helpings subscribers.

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Links and Things

Over on my friend Nik Sharma’s newsletter he has a fantastic post on the science of ageing cookie dough

What Does Cookie Dough Resting Do?

If the combo of chocolate and coffee is for you but you want dessert not cookies, Nigel Slater has a wonderful looking mousse in the Guardian this week. https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/feb/28/nigel-slater-midweek-recipe-chocolate-espresso-mousse-with-praline

The wonderful Abbott Elementary is back for a second season which just dropped on Disney+

I went to the Book Club event at Angela Hartnett’s Cafe Murano in Bermondsey. My friend Georgina Hayden was there to talk about her fantastic book Nstisima, a joyous exploration of the world of fasting food associated with the Orthodox faith. She was interviewed by the food writer Mark Diacano, and then a dinner of recipes from the book was served. The restaurant puts these book club events on regularly and it was a wonderful evening, well worth keeping an eye on who they have coming up.
https://www.cafemurano.co.uk/news-events/italian-cheese-wine-shop-2/

I had the pleasure of attending the launch of Gurdeep Loyals debut book Mother Tongue and whilst catching up with friends, and chatting a million miles an hour, I was able to try a handful of the dishes from the book. If the food from the party is anything to go by the book is going to be a treasure trove of wonderful flavours. Gurdeep is a veteran of the food industry having working in trends, marketing and development over the last decade. This book, his debut, has been in the works for a number of years and even managed to snag the Jane Grigson award for debut food book all the way back in 2021 (im guessing covid delayed the books release somewhat). Since the launch I have found myself picking up and reading the book on multiple occasions and next weekend plan of cooking multiple dishes from it.