JOSEPH FINDER: EARTHQUAKE COOKIES
Just before Christmas, a friend of mine, Annie, came by for dinner and brought dessert: these amazing chocolate cookies called Earthquake cookies from a wonderful shop in Cambridge, Mass., called Sofra. What’s so great about them is that they have a fudgy, brownie-like center and crisp edges like a chocolate chip cookie.
They were gone by the next day.
Apparently, as they get stale, they get better – the inside stays gooey and the outside gets crisper. But like I said, none were left, so we never found out.
A Google search turned up the recipe. I’m not a big baker, but I’m a big chocoholic, and we had to bring something to another friend’s Christmas party, so I decided to try the recipe.
The dough had to rest at least overnight and for as long as a week in the fridge.You roll the cooled dough into balls, roll those balls in granulated sugar, then dust them with powdered sugar. If you want to know why chocolate crinkle cookies crack, Cooks Illustrated (of course) has a scientific explanation: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/8922-science-the-key-to-crinkly-cookies (Something about how the sugar forms a crust and the inside rises until it cracks. I didn’t follow it.)
They’re called earthquake cookies because they look like your California backyard after an earthquake. Here’s the recipe, a modification of the classic chocolate crinkle cookie by chef Maura Kilpatrick of Sofra in Cambridge, Mass.. (The crinkle cookie was invented by a Mrs. Helen Fredell of St. Paul, Minnesota. I know this only because I’m a research fiend.)
This one is worth the effort.
They sound scrumptious!!!
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