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Secret Recipe Club: Judy’s Chocolate Earthquake Cookies

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Posted on 25-06-2012 | By: Lucy

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Desserts

Tags: , ,

This month in the Secret Recipe Club, we were assigned My Judy the Foodie. This is a really fun blog run by Shari and named after her Mom Judy who was an excellent cook and hostess. There a huge amount of recipes, some are Judy’s originals and others are ones that Shari has come up with by herself. Each recipe has a little insight into Shari’s life or a memory of Judy which I really enjoyed. Shari speaks really touchingly of her mother and I defy anyone to read about her without tearing up a little.

I wanted to make one of Judy’s recipes and I wanted to make something really sweet and indulgent. Luckily there were lots to choose from! I chose earthquake cookies, partly because I loved the name (who doesn’t!) and also because the ingredients list reads like a dream… I also love the make-ahead approach, to have cookie dough sitting in my fridge or freezer and then just decide I want a batch of cookies? Yes please!

This makes plenty of cookies! So far I have made 20 large cookies and still have about half the cookie dough left. I tend to make cookies one small batch at a time because otherwise I would eat them all at once!

Ingredients for Judy’s Earthquake Cookies:

  • 8 tablespoons or 115g butter
  • 4 squares chocolate (I wasn’t sure how big the squares Judy used were so I used 8 small squares I had)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • a lot of icing/confectioners sugar
Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a saucepan. Make sure you stir this often so it doesn’t stick or start bubbling away! In a large mixing bowl beat the eggs and then add the sugar, vanilla essence and the chocolate and butter mix. Stir together and then add flour, baking powder and salt and beat together until this is all smooth. Cover the mix with cling film and put into the fridge. Leave it there and don’t touch it for 24 hours. Shari has tried cutting down on this step and it didn’t work so do as she says!

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F. Butter or line a baking tray and put the icing sugar into a large bowl. Take the cookie dough out of the fridge. Mine looked like a thick fudge after it’s time in the fridge! Take a teaspoon and spoon out this amount, roll into a little ball and then roll around in the icing sugar until it is completely covered. Place these onto the sheet and then cook for around 10 minutes. Leave for a few minutes and then remove from the tray. Leave to cool on a wire rack and try to resist eating a cookie warm from the tray….