Chocolate Almond Surprises

Each week I try a new Cookies by Bess recipe, and each week I am amazed at how great each recipe is! Chocolate Almond Surprises are no exception!

Recipes with “surprise” in the name are intriguing to me…usually it means something is hidden inside the cookie. Again, Chocolate Almond Surprises is no exception! This time it wasn’t just a nut or cherry, it was a mixture including chopped almond.  Adding even more intrigue! ?

So many things went through my mind as I was contemplating making these cookies…how was I going to make a hole in a teaspoon size dough ball? How fine did the chopped almonds need to be? How easy would it be to reshape the cookie once I added the almond filling? Would the cookies break a part while baking? So many questions!

I’m rating Chocolate Almond Surprises 3-stars.  To be honest, I’m on the fence between 2 and 3 stars.  There are a lot of steps in this recipe with melting the chocolate, forming the dough balls, filling them, and finally rolling them in confectioner’s sugar.  Lots of steps, but the perfect cookie dough makes them easy to work through.  I’ll stick with 3-stars, but just know that you can easily make these cookies!

So, I got started finding all the answers to my questions by pulling my ingredients together.

The chocolate needed to be melted and cooled, so I got my make shift double boiler going.

Adding the milk gave the chocolate a nice rich and creamy color and texture.

Once the chocolate was all melted, I set it aside to cool.

After creaming the butter, sugar, and vanilla, I added the melted chocolate.

The chocolate blended nicely with the butter and sugar.

Finally, I added the flour gradually and continued to mix well until everything was nicely blended together.

At this point, I was surprised the recipe didn’t say to chill the dough. The recipe says to roll a dough ball, then make a hole in the cookie and fill with almond filling. I was thinking the dough needs to be the perfect consistency for this to work, or there was going to be a real mess. Chilling the dough made sense to ensure it wasn’t too soft or sticky.

Before rolling the dough balls, I mixed together the almond filling.  Very simple with chopped almonds, an egg white, a little water and almond extract.  Looks yummy!

Much to my surprise, the dough was the perfect consistency! It didn’t stick to my fingers or the palms of my hands.

I did my best to make a hole in the center of the dough balls.  Instead, I ended up having to break apart the dough ball rather than make hole in it.

Next, I used my 1/4 inch teaspoon to add the almond filling.

I wasn’t sure how the dough was going to reshape around the almond filling.  It actually worked perfectly!  This dough is so perfect for this cookie!  It’s easy to roll, easy to break apart, easy to fill, and easy to reshape…you go Grandma Bess!  Another fantastic, and easy to make, cookie recipe!

By this point, I had the answers to almost all my questions and had my routine for making the rest of the cookies. The consistency of the dough made the process easy and relatively quick!

My final question was answered while to cookies baked in the oven…would the dough balls break apart?

Nope! They just baked up perfectly!  The cookies were even easy to remove from the cookie sheets!

Finally, I rolled the warm cookies in confectioner’s sugar.

What an awesome cookie! Fun to make and they taste great! The chocolate and almond flavors are amazing…add the confectioner’s sugar almost melted into a frosting and you have a perfect cookie…with a surprise inside!

Unbelievably awesome!

If you love chocolate, making cookies, and surprises…Chocolate Almond Surprises are the cookie for you!

I would love to hear what you think! Please post a comment on my blog or on our Join the Community page…I hope to hear form you soon!

XXOO,

Janet

 

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