I thought I’d do a twist on some chocolate cookies my Mom always makes for Christmas for TGRWT #13. I tried two versions with added caraway (and a litte bitter orange peel) – one where I omitted all the spices except cocoa and one where they were added together with all the spices in the original recipes.

Chocolate cookies with caraway
100 g butter
200 g sugar
350 g flour
30 g cocoa powder
3 g caraway
1 g bitter orange peel
1/2 t baking soda or baking powder
1 egg
3 T strong coffee

Mix all ingredients in the given order. If you have a cookie extruder (aka cookie press), extrude about 6-8 cm and form into a circle. Bake for about 10 min at 180 °C or until ready (Note that you really can’t tell if they’re done from the color!). Dust with powdered sugar.

The original recipe had the following spices:
1-1 1/2 t cloves
1-1 1/2 t cinnamon
1-1 1/2 t ginger
1-1 1/2 t star anise
1-1 1/2 t cardamom
1-1 1/2 t nutmeg
1-1 1/2 t bitter orange peel

(these teaspoons are not measuring teaspoons, but more like actual teaspoons!)

Verdict: In the stripped down version with only cocoa, caraway and some bitter lemon peel there you first notice the cocoa, then there is an aftertaste of caraway. I like caraway, so I was very pleased with the result. But my wife (who isn’t very fond of caraway) wasn’t particularily fond of them. Anyhow I think the 10:1 ratio of cocoa to caraway worked very fine. And the aroma brought back memories from the chocolate sauerkraut cake I made some time ago which was really delicious. With all the other spices present I wasn’t able to single out the carawa flavor, but it (probably) added to the overall complexity. I really recommend the recipe – even if you decide to omit caraway!

According to Google trends searches for chocolate peak every December (plus that special day in February), and I assume that consumption of chocolate follows the same pattern. For this month’s They go really well together event (TGRWT #13) Erik Fooladi over at Fooducation has chosen to pair chocolate with caraway. So if you plan to cook or bake with chocolate (or cocoa) in December – why not add some caraway and see how it turns out? It’s time to spice up your Christmas desserts! Surprise your guests and let us all know how it worked out.

If you can’t figure out what to make, try the chocolate sauerkraut cake I blogged about last year. It was quite successful and I figured out that one possible reason for the success was the fact that sauerkraut contains caraway which goes well with chocolate (and cognac).

More information about how to participate can be found in Erik’s announcement post of TGRWT #13.

“Another interesting flavour to arise was the peanut and Merlot vinegar chocolates. Whilst trialing the combination of a merlot vinegar flavoured chocolate and the Hennessy Paradis Extra Cognac we noticed an unexpected third flavour element, present only when the two were combined: peanut. We underscored this unusual taste discovery by adding salted and roasted peanuts. The result is amazing”

“The long tradition of savouring cognac together with a suitably matched, high-quality cigar led us to the logical conclusion that both of these products must contain taste elements that matched or complemented each other. Once we blended various tobaccos and oak it resulted in a smooth underscore of the tobacco taste that is present when smoking a fine cigar. This coupled with Richard Hennessey makes the experience unique. On further experimentation the Ganache itself delivers the aromas slowly, you therefore savour the chocolate as you would a fine cigar.”

Any cooks out there who can come up with recipe suggestions for the different chocolate dishes? I have added theses pairings to the list of other known pairings.

Caraway seeds (photo by Joyous! at flickr)

I did get the recipe and it turned out that it was from a cookbook called “Food that really schmecks” by Edna Staebler. The book is a collection of recipes from the Mennonite community in Ontario. Many Mennonites came from Germany, hence the word “schmecks” in the title which is German (zu schmecken = to taste). According to the cookbook, leftover sauerkraut makes the cake moist and delicious – which I can certainly confirm! And the strange things is you can’t really taste the sauerkraut. Here is the recipe (the way I made it):

Sauerkraut chocolate cake
170 g butter (ca. 3/4 cup)
300 g white sugar – less than the 1 1/2 cups in the original recipe
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (either essence or vanilla flavored sugar)
2.5 dL water (= 1 cup)
6 dL flour (= 2 1/2 cup)
1.3 dL unsweetened cocoa (= 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda (sauerkraut is sour, therefore the recipe calls for soda!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
330 g drained  sauerkraut (1 1/2 cup) – more than in the original recipe

Mix butter and sugar. Add eggs, water and dry ingredients. Stir in the sauerkraut and pour batter into greased pan. Bake at 350 F/180 C for 30-50 minutes.

The cake was a little too moist in the center when I made it and could have needed a couple more minutes in the oven. Make sure you check if it’s all set by inserting a wooden match or a knitting pin in the center of the cake!

Interestingly, the cookbook “Food that really schmecks” was recently presented in the blog Cream Puffs in Venice, with the following statement attached: “There is no haute cuisine or molecular gastronomy to be found here”. But chocolate and sauerkraut might turn out to be another flavor pairing based on sound chemical reasoning.

Update: Read the followup on this post with more about chocolate and caraway (the main spice in sauerkraut)