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!