Double Choc Cookie Cups

Oh my goodness! It seems like forever ago since I made these. I’m so far behind on my blog posts. I was downloading photos from my phone when I stumbled across these then remembered I hadn’t blogged about them. I’ve also been having no end of trouble with phones and cameras and photos not being downloaded. It’s been one thing after another with technology for me lately.

Anyway, that’s enough of a rant from me. As you already know, I’m a Pinterest fan and love the recipes that come flooding through on my Pinterest feed. Another such recipe I’ve been seeing a lot of recently is for cookie cups. It’s all about baking your cookie in a muffin pan and filling it with all sorts of delicious things.

This was my first attempt so I didn’t want to get too adventurous with ingredients so used my basic biscuit recipe from my high school home economics cookbook, “Day to Day Cookery” and added a bit of cocoa to the recipe.

These delicious (and “devilishly” as it says on the packet) individually wrapped dark chocolate squares http://www.startupvalley.com/member/bensstiv were on sale so I picked up a few bags (quite a few – they were used in another recipe, honest).

It was just a matter of rolling balls of cookie dough and then pressing them into a well greased (excuse the excess use of oil spray in the above photo – I wanted to make sure they didn’t stick, and no, they didn’t) muffin pan. Then you just press the chocolate into the centre.

After this successful attempt I can’t wait to try different flavour combinations. The possibilities are endless. You can check out some recipes that I’ve pinned on my Pinterest feed here.

Double Choc Cookie Cups

(From “Day to Day Cookery”

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup Self Raising flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 150gm butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• dark chocolate squares

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. 
2. Mix all dry ingredients together, melt butter and add to dry mixture. 
3. Add beaten egg. 
4. Mix together. Roll teaspoons of mixture into balls and pop into a well greased mini muffin pan.
5. Press chocolate squares into mixture until a ‘cup’ forms.
6. Bake for 10 to 12 mins, approx.
7. Makes approx 24 min cookie cups.

Double chocolate {beanie} brownies

What’s better than a brownie? A double chocolate brownie or a double chocolate brownie that’s good for you? This recipe has a hidden ingredient, red kidney beans. You might wonder why you would go and ruin a perfectly good brownie recipe with hidden beans but besides not altering the taste at all, it actually enhanced the chocolate flavour and made the brownies more fudgey and moist.

Kidney beans are an excellent source of fibre and cheap, dirt cheap. They are perfect for Mexican food, Italian dishes and many vegetarian dishes as they are also an excellent source of protein. Red kidney beans are also a natural source of folate, B1, phosphorous, iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium and Vitamin K. Also,

Kidney beans are an excellent source of the trace mineral, molybdenum, an integral component of the enzyme sulfite oxidase, which is responsible for detoxifying sulfites. Just one cup of cooked kidney beans supplies 177.0% of the daily value for molybdenum. Sulfites are a type of preservative commonly added to prepared foods like delicatessen salads and salad bars. Persons who are sensitive to sulfites in these foods may experience rapid heartbeat, headache or disorientation if sulfites are unwittingly consumed. If you have ever reacted to sulfites, it may be because your molybdenum stores are insufficient to detoxify them.

Source: whfoods.org

McKenzie’s have been my go to brand for Red kidney beans and other pulses for as long as I can remember. For just over $2 a pack, what a cheap option for a meal or a sweet dish. If you think its time consuming to prepare dried pulses, try doing 2 cups at a time and freezing what you don’t use or use any leftovers in a cake batter (or brownie like I did) or add to any mince dishes and casseroles. They make your meat options go a little further if you’re trying to cut down on your grocery bill.

Besides McKenzie’s being popular for red kidney beans, lentils, pearl barley and other pulses, they make these handy salt and pepper grinders as well.

I’ve been using McKenzie’s Bicarbonate of Soda and other baking products since I started to learn to bake over 40 years ago. 

You can’t go wrong with this little bundle of goodness, in sweet or savoury, Oh, and just don’t tell the kids. They won’t know the difference.

Double Chocolate {Beanie} Brownies

• 1.1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tbs cocoa
• 1/2-1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup red kidney beans (soaked overnight, boiled until soft and then blitzed in a blender)
• 6 tbs oil (I used Canola)
• 1 tbs vinegar
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1. Add all ingredients together and mix well by hand.
2. Pour into a pan lined with baking paper and bake for approx 20 mins at 160 deg C.
3. Allow to cool and cut into pieces and serve.
4. Can be sprinkled with icing sugar or cocoa to serve.

Disclaimer:  I was given McKenzie’s products to try. All thoughts, opinions and recipes are my own.